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BEETHOVEN    AND    HIS 
FORERUNNERS 


5909       1 


£&%& 


r*  n 


BEETHOVEN 

AND    HIS 

FORERUNNERS 


BY 

DANIEL    GREGORY    MASON 

AUTHOR       OF       "FROM       GRIEG      TO       BIAHMt" 


NEW  YORK 

THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

LONDON:     MACMILLAN     &     CO.,    LTD. 

191  I 

ALL     RIGHTS      RESERVED 


7*  %>  o  ^^ 


Copyright,    1904, 
By  THE   MACM1LLAN    COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  November,  1904.    Reprinted 
August,  19x1. 


NorfaooB  $tmb: 
Berwick  &  Smith  Co.,  Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


MUSfC 
UBRAW 

39  0 
M  3  ? 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


I  The    Periods    of    Musical  His- 
tory            i 

II  Palestrina   and   the    Music   of 

Mysticism 43 

III  The   Modern  Spirit      ....     79 

IV  The  Principles  of  Pure    Music  123 
wV  Haydn 1-73 

VI   Mozart 211 

VII   Beethoven 249 

VIII   Beethoven  (continued)      .     .     .  289 

IX  Conclusion j^^ 


CHAPTER     I 

THE    PERIODS  OF  MUSICAL 

HISTORY 


HE  modern  view  of  history  is 
vivified  by  a  principle  scarcely 
dreamed  of  before  the  middle  of 
the  last  century ;  the  conception 
which  permeates  all  our  interpre- 
tations of  the  story  of  the  world,  which  illumi- 
nates our  study  of  all  its  phases,  was  by  our 
grandfathers  apprehended  either  vaguely  or  not 
at  all.  For  them,  history  dealt  with  a  more  or 
less  random  series  of  happenings,  succeeding  each 
other  accidentally,  unaccountably,  and  at  hap- 
hazard ;  each  single  event,  determined  by  causes 
peculiar  to  itself,  was  without  relation  to  all  the 
others.  Political  and  social  history,  for  example, 
was  an  account  of  battles,  sieges,  revolutions,  gov- 
ernments ;  of  kings,  warriors,  and  statesmen.  Its 
salient  features  were  special  occasions  and  indi- 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

vidual  men  :  Marathon  and  Waterloo,  Alexan- 
der, Caesar,  Alfred,  Napoleon.  Of  pervasive 
social  movements,  tendencies  of  human  feeling 
and  thought,  developments  of  industries,  insti- 
tutions, laws,  and  customs  by  a  gradual  process 
in  which  great  numbers  of  personally  insignifi- 
cant men  played  their  part,  little  account  was 
taken.  Facts  were  facts,  and  had  no  hidden  sig- 
nificance, no  mutual  interaction,  no  cumulative 
force,  momentum,  or  direction. 

Far  otherwise  do  we  interpret  the  story  of  the 
world.  Inspired  by  the  great  doctrine  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  the  doctrine  of  evolution, 
first  formulated  by  biology,  but  immediately  ap- 
plied toall  realms  of  knowledge,  we  read  in  events 
a  continuous  movement,  a  coherent  growth,  a 
gradual,  vast,  and  single  process.  For  us,  indi- 
vidual events  and  men  sink  into  insignificance  in 
comparison  with  the  great  drama  of  which  they 
are  only  acts  and  actors.  For  us,  great  popular 
movements,  instinctive  strivings,  of  which  the 
men  and  women  under  their  sway  were  uncon- 
scious, vast  blossomings  of  vital  energy  the  roots 
of  which  were  far  below  the  surface  of  the  human 
mind,  rise  into  relief  as  the  true  interests  of  the 
historian,  and  we  interpret  all  particular  happen- 


THE      PERIODS    OF     MUSICAL      HISTORY 

ings  and  special  persons  in  the  light  of  these 
universal  tendencies.  In  geology  we  trace  the 
continuous  formation  of  the  earth  through  innu- 
merable years  ;  in  zoology  we  study  those  slow 
but  constant  transformations  of  animals  which 
are  effected  by  natural  selection  and  the  survival 
of  the  fittest ;  in  sociology  we  examine  the  pain- 
ful yet  inevitable  crystallization  out  of  the  hu- 
man spirit  of  such  ideas  as  responsibility,  liberty, 
justice  ;  in  philosophy  we  learn  of  the  subtle  im- 
plications of  our  nature,  and  so  learning,  substi- 
tute a  human  God  for  the  idols  of  savages  and 
the  remote  tyrannical  deities  of  half-developed 
religions.  There  is  not  a  branch  of  our  thought 
in  which  this  way  of  interpreting  life  as  a  pro- 
cess, this  conceiving  of  it  as  dynamic  and  vital 
rather  than  static  and  inert,  has  not  enlarged  our 
outlook,  deepened  our  sense  of  the  sacredness 
and  wonder  of  the  universe,  and  filled  our  spirits 
with  a  new  freedom,  enthusiasm,  and  hope. 

Peculiarly  interesting  is  the  application  of  this 
mode  of  study  to  the  art  of  music.  The  expres- 
sion of  feeling  through  sounds  combined  in  beau- 
tiful forms,  gives  us  an  opportunity,  as  cannot 
be  too  often  pointed  out,*  for  a  much  freer  and 

*  See  the  author's  "From  Grieg  to  Brahms,"  pp.  21 9x223. 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

more  self-determined  activity  than  we  can  enjoy- 
in  our  other  artistic  pursuits.  Because  the  art 
of  music,  both  in  its  material  and  in  its  content, 
is  less  shackled,  less  thwarted  in  its  characteristic 
processes,  than  the  representative  arts,  its  evo- 
lution is  remarkably  obvious  and  easy  to  trace. 
Its  material,  in  the  first  place,  is  a  product  of 
man's  free  selection ;  that  complex  system  of 
musical  tones  which  he  has  constructed  by  many 
centuries  of  work,  is  his  own,  to  use  as  he  will, 
in  a  sense  in  which  language,  natural  objects,  and 
physical  substances  can  never  be.  Whereas  the 
growth  of  poetry,  of  painting,  of  sculpture,  of 
architecture,  is  complicated  and  distorted  by  a 
thousand  external  conditions,  that  of  music  is 
determined  by  its  own  inner  laws  alone, — by  the 
laws,  that  is  to  say,  of  sound-production,  of 
sound-perception,  and  of  psychology.  In  the 
second  place,  the  content  of  music,  that  which 
it  expresses  by  means  of  these  freely  selected  and 
composed  tones,  is  purely  internal.  It  is  easy 
to  see  that  the  objects  of  musical  expression, 
namely,  human  emotions  in  their  essence,  re- 
duced, so  to  speak,  to  their  lowest  terms,  are 
more  fluid  to  manipulation  than  the  compara- 
tively fixed,  indocile,  and  external  objects  of  the 


THE      PERIODS    OF     MUSICAL      HISTORY 

representative  arts.  By  virtue,  then,  both  of  its 
material  medium  and  of  its  ideal  content,  music 
enjoys,  among  human  modes  of  expression,  a 
unique  freedom  and  autonomy.  It  grows,  not  un- 
der pressure  from  outside,  but  by  its  own  inner 
vitality  ;  its  forms  are  determined,  not  by  corre- 
spondence with  anything  in  the  heavens  or  on 
the  earth,  but,  like  those  of  the  snow-crystals, 
by  the  inexorable  laws  that  govern  it ;  and  the 
particular  "changes  it  undergoes  in  its  evolution, 
marking  merely  successive  incarnations  of  tend- 
encies and  potencies  always  implicit  in  it,  can  be 
traced  with  comparative  ease,  clearness,  and  cer- 
tainty. 

But  however  unmistakably  musical  history 
may  reveal  an  evolutionary  process,  it  does  not 
reveal  that  process  as  perfectly  regular  and  uni- 
form. That  general  tendency  from  a  low  toward 
a  high  state  of  organization,  with  increase  in 
definiteness,  coherence, and  heterogeneity,  which 
readers  of  Herbert  Spencer  expect  in  any  evo- 
lutionary series,  does  characterize  the  growth 
of  music  as  a  whole;  but  within  the  large  gen- 
eral process  we  also  observe,  as  we  do  in  many 
other  cases  of  evolution  of  any  degree  of  com- 
plexity, many  momentary  phases  sharply  marked 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

off  from  one  another,  many  separate  and  dis- 
tinct periods,  like  the  chapters  in  a  book  or  the 
acts  in  a  play.  Each  period,  beginning  tenta- 
tively, maturing  slowly,  and  culminating  in 
music  which  carries  its  characteristic  effects  to 
the  highest  possible  pitch,  is  succeeded  by  an- 
other, presenting  the  same  phases  of  growth,  but 
seeking  effects  quite  different.  All  the  periods 
hang  together  in  a  large  view  ;  yet  they  are,  after 
all,  diverse  in  character,  and  therefore  capable 
of  being  distinguished,  and  even  dated. 

An  analogy  offered  by  certain  well-known 
chemical  processes  may  help  to  make  compre- 
hensible this  periodic  nature  of  musical  evolu- 
tion. Chemists  have  a  term,  "  critical  point," 
by  which  they  name  a  stage  in  the  behavior  of 
a  substance,  under  some  systematic  treatment, 
at  which  it  suddenly  undergoes  some  striking 
change,  some  catastrophic  transformation.  Put, 
for  example,  a  lump  of  ice  in  a  crucible  and  ap- 
ply an  even  heat  by  which  its  temperature  is 
raised,  say,  one  degree  each  minute.  Here  is  a 
systematic  treatment  of  the  ice,  a  steady  influ- 
ence exerted  upon  it.  Yet,  curiously  enough, 
this  ice  which  is  being  so  equably  acted  upon 
will  not  change  its  form  in  the  equable,  regular 

8 


THE      PERIODS    OF      MUSICAL      HISTORY 

fashion  we  might  expect.  It  will  seem  to  un- 
dergo little  or  no  change  until,  at  a  given  mo- 
ment, suddenly,  it  passes  into  water,  a  liquid 
wholly  different  in  appearance  from  the  original 
solid.  It  has  reached  a  a  critical  point."  Con- 
tinue the  heating,  and  presently  another  critical 
point  will  be  reached,  at  which,  with  equal  sud- 
denness, the  liquid  will  be  transformed  into  a  va- 
por— steam.  These  catastrophes,  in  which  the 
physical  properties  of  the  substance  suddenly 
change,  are  conditioned,  of  course,  by  its  chem 
ical  nature.  They  take  place  in  the  midst  of  a 
systematic  treatment  which  we  might  expect  to 
produce  only  gradual,  inconspicuous  effects, 
but  which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  produces  a  series 
of  events  as  strikingly  differentiated  one  from 
another  as  the  acts  of  a  drama. 

It  is  in  a  similar  way  that,  in  the  history  of 
music,  the  tonal  material  used,  under  the  sys- 
tematic treatment  of  man's  aesthetic  faculty,  has 
been  constrained  by  its  nature  to  undergo  sud- 
den changes,  to  recrystallize  in  novel  ways,  to 
take  on  unwonted  aspects  which  initiate  new 
periods.  When  the  possibilities  of  one  sort  of 
tone-combination  are  nearly  or  quite  exhausted, 
the  keener  minds  of  a  generation,  led  by  grop- 

9 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

ing  but  unerring  instinct,  grasp  an  unused  prin- 
ciple of  organization,  latent  in  the  material,  and 
inaugurate  a  new  style.  This  in  turn  runs  its 
course,  develops  its  resources,  reaches  its  per- 
fection, and  is  succeeded  by  another,  which, 
after  due  time,  is  also  superseded.  All  these 
periods  are  but  moments  in  one  vast  evolution, 
successive  blossomings  from  the  one  root  of 
human  feeling  expressible  in  music ;  yet  each 
has  its  individual  qualities,  its  peculiar  style,  its 
special  masters.  It  is  possible  both  to  trace 
certain  general  tendencies  through  them  all,  and 
to  define  other  special  qualities  in  which  each  is 
peculiar ;  and  it  will  be  worth  while,  before 
passing  on  to  our  proposed  study  of  the  par- 
ticular period  of  Beethoven,  to  describe  thus  in 
general  terms  the  salient  features  of  the  evolu- 
tion as  a  whole,  and  to  characterize,  however 
briefly,  the  individual  periods  we  can  discrim- 
inate in  it. 

In  the  most  general  point  of  view,  an  evolu- 
tion, of  whatever  sort,  is  a  progress  from  what 
Spencer  calls  "  indefinite,  incoherent,  homoge- 
neity," to  what,  consistently  if  rather  overwhelm- 
ingly, he  calls  "definite, coherent,  heterogeneity." 
All  low  forms  of  life,  that  is  to  say,  are  so  homo- 


THE      PERIODS    OF     MUSICAL      HISTORY 

geneous  in  constitution  as  to  be  comparatively 
indefinite  and  incoherent;  their  parts,  being  all 
very  much  alike,  cannot  be  built  up  into  definite, 
strongly  cohesive  structures.  A  jelly  fish,  made 
up  of  thousands  of  but  slightly  differentiated 
cells,  and  without  legs,  arms,  head,  or  any  viscera 
worth  mentioning  except  stomach,  is  doubtless 
a  useful  animal,  but  not  one  of  pronounced  in- 
dividuality or  solidarity.  A  savage  tribe,  con- 
sisting of  many  human  beings  almost  indistin- 
guishable from  one  another  as  regards  character, 
strength,  accomplishments,  or  powers  of  leader- 
ship, is  a  similar  phenomenon  in  a  different  field, 
a  sort  of  social  jelly  fish. 

In  higher  forms  of  life,  on  the  contrary,  such 
as  vertebrate  animals  and  civilized  communities, 
the  elementary  parts  are  sufficiently  diverse  to 
be  interwoven  into  highly  individual  and  com- 
pact organisms.  The  variety  of  the  atoms  or 
molecules  makes  possible  a  great  solidarity  in 
the  molar  unit  they  compose,  since  the  unique- 
ness and  indissolubility  of  a  structure  is  directly 
proportionate  to  the  diversity  of  the  elements 
that  compose  it.  A  man,  if  he  is  to  attain  the 
dignity  of  manhood,  must  be  more  than  a  stom- 
ach ;  he  must  knit  into  his  single  unity  a  bony 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

skeleton,  a  circulatory  system,  a  brain  and  nerv- 
ous apparatus,  complicated  viscera,  and  heart, 
mind,  and  spirit.  A  state  depends  for  its  vital- 
ity on  the  varied  characters  and  abilities  of  its 
citizens ;  it  must  have  laborers,  artisans,  mer- 
chants, sailors,  soldiers,  students,  and  states- 
men. In  the  second  book  of  his  "  Republic," 
Plato  describes  the  differentiation  of  talents 
and  pursuits  in  the  citizens  on  which  depends 
the  advance  in  civilization  of  the  society.  Such 
an  increase  in  differentiation  of  the  parts,  accom- 
panied by  increasing  deflniteness  and  coherence 
in  the  wholes,  characterizes  every  process  of  ev- 
olution. 

The  history  of  music  is  the  history  of  such 
an  evolution.  Music  began  with  vague,  unlo- 
cated  sounds,  not  combined  with  one  another, 
but  following  at  haphazard,  and  but  slightly 
contrasted  in  pitch  or  duration.  Gradually, 
under  the  inconceivably  slow  yet  irresistible  in- 
fluence of  men's  selective  and  constructive  fac- 
ulty, these  sounds  took  on  deflniteness,  were 
fixed  in  pitch,  were  measured  in  time,  were  knit 
into  phrases  and  themes  as  words  are  knit  into 
sentences,  were  combined  simultaneously  in 
chords  as  individuals  are  combined  in  commun- 


THE      PERIODS    OF     MUSICAL      HISTORY 

ities  ; — became,  in  a  word,  the  various,  clearly 
denned,  and  highly  organized  family  of  tones 
we  use  in  modern  music.  Two  passages  from 
Spencer's  "  First  Principles "  will  bring  be- 
fore us  very  clearly  the  advance  music  has 
made  towards  heterogeneity  in  its  elements,  on 
the  one  hand,  and  towards  definiteness  and  co- 
herence in  its  wholes,  on  the  other.  "It  needs," 
he  says,  "  but  to  contrast  music  as  it  is  with 
music  as  it  was,  to  see  how  immense  is  the  in- 
crease of  heterogeneity.  We  see  this  ...  on 
comparing  any  one  sample  of  aboriginal  music 
with  a  sample  of  modern  music — even  an  ordi- 
nary song  for  the  piano  ;  which  we  find  to  be 
relatively  highly  heterogeneous,  not  only  in 
respect  of  the  varieties  in  the  pitch  and  in  the 
length  of  the  notes,  the  number  of  different 
notes  sounding  at  the  same  instant  in  company 
with  the  voice,  and  the  variations  of  strength 
with  which  they  are  sounded  and  sung,  but  in 
respect  of  the  changes  of  key,  the  changes  of 
time,  the  changes  of  timbre  of  the  voice,  and 
the  many  other  modifications  of  expression  : 
while  between  the  old  monotonous  dance-chant 
and  a  grand  opera  of  our  own  day,  with  its  end- 
less orchestral  complexities  and  vocal  combina- 

»3 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

tions,  the  contrast  in  heterogeneity  is  so  extreme 
that  it  seems  scarcely  credible  that  the  one  should 
have  been  the  ancestor  of  the  other."  *  Of  the 
corresponding  increase  in  coherence  and  defin- 
iteness  he  writes  as  follows  :  "  In  music,  pro- 
gressive integration  is  displayed  in  numerous 
ways.  The  simple  cadence  embracing  but  a  few 
notes,  which  in  the  chants  of  savages  is  monot- 
onously repeated,  becomes,  among  civilized 
races,  a  long  series  of  different  musical  phrases 
combined  into  one  whole ;  and  so  complete  is 
the  integration,  that  the  melody  cannot  be 
broken  off  in  the  middle,  nor  shorn  of  its  final 
note,  without  giving  us  a  painful  sense  of  in- 
completeness. When  to  the  air,  a  bass,  a  tenor, 
and  an  alto  are  added ;  and  when  to  the  har- 
mony of  different  voice-parts  there  is  added  an 
accompaniment ;  we  see  exemplified  integra- 
tions of  another  order,  which  grow  gradually 
more  elaborate.  And  the  process  is  carried  a 
stage  higher  when  these  complex  solos,  con- 
certed pieces,  choruses,  and  orchestral  effects, 
are  combined  into  the  vast  ensemble  of  a  musi- 
cal drama  ;  of  which,  be  it  remembered,  the 
artistic  perfection  largely  consists  in  the  subor- 

*  "  First  Principles,"  American  edition,  p.  358. 
14 


THE      PERIODS    OF     MUSICAL      HISTORY 

dination  of  the  particular  effects  to  the  total 
effect."*  In  innumerable  ways,  which  these 
passages  will  perhaps  suffice  to  suggest,  the 
material  of  music  has  undergone  a  continuous, 
orderly,  and  progressive  process  of  develop- 
ment, from  its  earliest  days  down  to  our  own. 
It  has  exemplified,  in  short,  an  evolution  from 
"indefinite,  incoherent,  homogeneity"  to  "  def- 
inite, coherent,  heterogeneity." 

Concomitantly  with  this  special  evolution  of 
the  sound-material  of  music,  moreover,  has  gone 
on  a  more  general  evolution  of  human  facul- 
ties, which  has  involved  a  gradual  turning  away 
of  men's  attention  from  comparatively  low  forms 
of  musical  effect  to  those  higher  forms  which  re- 
quire for  their  appreciation  a  good  deal  of  con- 
centration, perception,  and  power  of  intellectual 
synthesis.  What  was  the  exclusive  concern  of 
the  earliest  musicians  became,  as  time  went  on. 
but  a  factor  in  a  more  complex  artistic  enjoyment. 
In  order  to  understand  this  aspect  of  the  matter 
clearly,  we  shall  have  to  distinguish  as  accurately 
as  possible  three  kinds  of  musical  effect,  all  in- 
dispensable to  music  worthy  of  the  name,  yet  not 
of  equal  dignity  and  value. 

*Op.  cit.,  p.  326. 

15 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

'There  is,  in  the  first  place,  the  direct  sensu- 
ous effect  of  the  sounds,  their  deliciousness  as 
sensations.  Musical  tones  gratify  the  ear  just 
as  light  and  color  gratify  the  eye,  agreeable 
tastes  the  palate,  aromatic  odors  the  nose,  and 
soft,  warm  surfaces  the  touch.  A  single  tone 
from  a  flute,  a  violin,  or  a  horn,  is  as  delightful 
as  a  patch  of  pure  color,  white,  red,  or  purple. 
To  listen  to  music  is,  at  least  in  part,  to  bathe 
in  a  flood  of  exquisite  aural  sensation.  This 
immediate  value  for  our  sense  of  the  "  concord 
of  sweet  sounds  "  is  a  fundamental,  legitimate, 
and  important  one,  to  deny  or  disparage  which 
is  to  confess  oneself  insensitive  or  a  prude.  All 
music  depends  for  a  part  of  its  appeal  on  its 
primary  sensuous  quality. 
^  In  the  second  place,  music  has  what  we  call 
expressive  value.  Feelings,  of  surprising  depth 
and  variety,  it  can  arouse  in  us,  by  inducing, 
through  the  contagiousness  of  rhythm  and 
melody,  tendencies  to  make  those  bodily  mo- 
tions and  vocal  sounds  which  are  the  natural 
accompaniment  of  our  emotions.*  These  ten- 
dencies, of  course,   remain   incipient;  they  do 

*  For  a  fuller  statement  of  this  theory  of  musical  expression, 
tee  "From  Grieg  to  Brahms,"  pp.  6-n. 

16 


THE      PERIODS    OF     MUSICAL      HISTORY 

not  discharge  in  actual  movements  greater  than 
the  tapping  of  the  foot  in  "  keeping  time  "  and  a 
slight  contraction  of  the  vocal  cords  ;  but  even 
this  faint  organic  commotion  suffices  to  arouse 
those  vivid  feelings  with  which  we  listen  to  ex- 
pressive music.  It  is  worth  while  to  note  fur- 
ther that  these  feelings  are  in  themselves  neces- 
sarily most  general  and  undefined,  hardly  more 
than  moods  of  animation,  excitement,  appre- 
hensiveness,  solemnity,  or  depression.  Their 
particular  coloring  is  always  imparted  either  by 
words  or  titles,  or  by  the  associations  of  the  in- 
dividual listener.  On  that  very  fact  depend 
both  the  poignancy  and  the  variety  of  musical 
expression. 

The  third  and  highest  value  of  music  is  its 
aesthetic  value,  or  beauty.  This  value,  which 
springs  from  the  delight  we  take  in  perceiving, 
or  mentally  organizing  our  sensations  and  ideas, 
is  precisely  analogous  to  the  aesthetic  value  of 
the  other  arts,  as,  for  example,  the  beauty  of  son- 
nets and  other  highly  articulated  poetic  forms, 
of  well-composed  pictures,  of  finely-propor- 
tioned sculpture,  of  symmetrical  and  harmoni- 
ous architecture.  It  depends,  in  general,  on  the 
perception  of  unity  in  a  mass  of  various  impres- 

17 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

sions,  and  is  but  one  example  of  a  type  of  satis- 
faction we  are  capable  of  finding  in  all  the  de- 
partments of  our  experience.  Wherever,  con- 
fronted by  many  objects,  sensations,  thoughts, 
or  feelings,  we  are  able  to  gain  a  sense  of  their 
coherence,  inter-relation,  and  essential  oneness, 
we  get  the  characteristic  aesthetic  value.  To  win 
it  is  the  highest  success  we  know.  To  perceive 
unity  in  the  bewildering  complexity  of  our  ex- 
perience, is  to  possess,  in  the  realm  of  knowledge, 
truth;  in  the  realm  of  practice, character  ;  in  the 
realm  of  art,  beauty.  Moreover,  since  percep- 
tion is  a  far  more  active,  self-directed  process 
than  either  sensation  or  emotion,  which  are  in 
large  degree  passively  suffered,  its  contribution 
to  our  mental  life  has  for  us  a  deeper  charm,  a 
more  far-reaching  significance,  than  that  of  any 
other  faculty.  Beauty  transfigures  all  elements 
that  may  coexist  with  it  in  the  mind.  In  the 
intellectual  sphere,  for  example,  we  understand 
far  more  deeply  the  phenomenon  when  we  know 
its  species  and  genus,  and  "science  is  but  class- 
ified knowledge."  In  practical  life,  all  the  little 
every-day  events,  the  petty  pleasures  and  pains, 
take  on,  when  we  view  them  in  relation  to  a  con- 
ceived unity  in  our  characters  and  destinies,  a 

18 


THE      PERIODS    OF     MUSICAL      HISTORY 

new  significance.  Similarly  in  music,  values  of 
the  first  two  species,  sweetness  of  sound  and 
emotional  expressiveness,  can  be  transfigured  by 
formal  beauty  ;  there  is  no  tone  that  is  not 
sweeter  when  it  embodies  a  lovely  melody ; 
there  is  no  emotion  that  is  not  apotheosized  by 
association  with  others  in  a  harmonious  whole, 
or  that  does  not  defeat  itself  when  it  stands  out 
single,  and  will  not  merge  itself  in  the  organism. 
No  music  is  wholly  devoid  of  any  one  of  the 
three  values;  but  the  greatest  music  uses  the 

t_     first  two  only  as  the  materials  of  the  third. 

V  It  is  easy  to  see,  however,  that  supreme  as . 
the  aesthetic  value  of  music  may  be,  men  could 
arrive  at  an  appreciation  of  it  only  after  a  long 
novitiate  and  training.  To  enjoy  the  sensuous 
beauty  of  sweet  sounds  one  needs  only  ears  ;  to 
be  moved  by  melodies  and  rhythms  that  strongly 
suggest  those  vocal  utterances  and  bodily  mo- 
tions which  are  the  natural  avenues  of  emotion, 
requires  but  a  slightly  more  complex  appreci- 
ative mechanism,  the  mechanism  of  organic  sen- 
sations and  their  associations  in  the  regions  of 
naive  feeling ;  but  to  perceive  the  manifold  in- 
ter-relationship, and  the  final  unity,  of  groups  of 
tones  combined  together  by  relations  in  pitch 

19 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

and  in  time,  one  needs  a  keen  ear,  an  awakened 
memory,  a  capacity  for  tracing  unity  under  the 
mask  of  variety, — in  a  word, a  thoroughly  trained 
and  concentrated  mind.  Musical  art  could  reach 
a  stage  in  which  all  three  of  its  values  were  as- 
sociated in  due  proportion  and  proper  adjust- 
ment, only  through  a  gradual  progress  begin- 
ning with  stages  in  which  it  was  but  the  embod- 
iment of  sensuous,  or  at  most  of  sensuous  and 
emotional,  values.  That  it  did,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  go  through  these  evolutionary  phases,  can 
be  demonstrated  by  a  brief  and  summary  ac- 
^  count  of  the  actual  periods  in  its  history. 

In  the  first  periods  that  we  can  make  out  by 
theory  and  deduction — prehistoric  periods  that 
left  no  records — the  values  sought  appear  to 
have  been  preponderantly  sensuous  and  expres- 
sive. The  earliest  savages,  like  all  children  even 
to  this  day,  who  make  a  noise  for  the  mere  joy 
of  it,  probably  used  their  voices  and  their  in- 
struments chiefly  as  nerve-stimulants.  As  in  the 
realm  of  color  their  tastes  ran  to  vivid  reds  and 
greens  and  blues,  barbaric  hues  that  assaulted 
the  eye  with  a  potent  stimulation,  so  in  music 
they  were  addicted  to  the  drums  and  trump- 
ets, to  shoutings,  and  wild  contortions,  to  what- 


THE      PERIODS    OF     MUSICAL      HISTORY 

ever  gave  them  a  generous  measure  of  sensation, 
whether  in  ears  or  muscles.  Their  motto  in  art 
was  doubtless  the  one  which  some  unknown 
humorist,  perhaps  a  Frenchman,  has  attributed 
to  the  Germans,  in  all  departments  from  art  to 
gastronomy — "  Plenty  of  it."  They  did,  to  be 
sure,  take  a  certain  satisfaction  in  the  expressive- 
ness of  their  wailings  and  shoutings,  and  even  in 
the  crude  formal  designs  into  which  they  shaped 
them,  generally  by  mere  repetition  of  some  eas- 
ily recognizable  formula  ;  but  their  chief  pleas- 
ure was  to  make  a  good,  rousing  noise.  Of  these 
preliminary  stages  in  the  arts  of  dance  and  song 
it  is  impossible,  however,  to  form  any  certain 
ideas.  We  can  only  rely  upon  conjecture  and 
inference,  supposing  that  something  like  them 
preceded  the  stages  about  which  we  have  more 
reliable  information. 

The  earliest  music  of  which  historic  records 
remain  is  that  of  the  Greeks.  By  painstaking 
study  of  the  musical  inscriptions  on  stone  that 
have  survived  the  centuries,  of  the  instruments 
actually  in  existence,  or  described  by  ancient 
Greek  writers,  and  of  the  technical  treatises  on 
music  which  are  preserved,  scholars  have  been 
able  to  substantiate  a  very  few  meager  facts  about 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

the  musical  practices  of  the  most  artistic  of  na- 
tions. On  the  whole,  these  facts  are  singularly 
disappointing.  Forgetting  that  music  is  the 
youngest  of  the  arts,  one  is  apt  to  expect  of  the 
Greeks  that  wondrous  subtlety  and  maturity  in 
it  which  they  showed  in  sculpture,  architecture, 
and  poetry.  A  people  possessed  of  so  surpassing 
an  artistic  instinct,  one  is  apt  to  think,  must  have 
carried  its  music  to  a  high  pitch  of  perfection. 
Investigation  shows,  nevertheless,  that  the  re- 
verse was  the  case.  Indeed,  no  testimony  could 
speak  more  eloquently  for  the  deliberation  and 
continuity  of  the  growth  of  music  than  the  child- 
ishness with  which  it  was  practiced  by  a  people 
so  gifted  as  the  Greeks  with  every  fineness  of 
nature,  but  at  the  disadvantage  of  living  too  near 
the  time  at  which  it  emerged  from  savagery. 

The  Greeks  used  music  chiefly  as  an  adjunct 
to  their  poetry,  and  were  accustomed  to  chant 
long  epics  in  what  would  seem  to  us  a  monoto- 
nous sing-song,  generally  if  not  always  without 
accompaniment.  Their  love  for  moderation  and 
their  avoidance  of  the  passionate,  harsh,  or  over- 
expressive,  moreover,  impelled  them  to  exclude 
from  their  gamut  both  the  lowest  and  the  high- 
est tones  of  the  voice,  so  that  even  their  tonal 


THE      PERIODS    OF     MUSICAL      HISTORY 

material  was  confined  to  a  range  of  about  two 
octaves.  The  tones  included  in  this  limited 
range,  however,  they  classified  and  disposed 
with  the  greatest  ingenuity.  The  intervals  at 
which  tone  should  follow  tone  were  dictated  by 
seven  arbitrary  schemes  called  modes,  and  each 
mode  was  supposed  to  have  its  peculiar  quality 
of  expression.  Thus  the  Lydian  mode,  corre- 
sponding to  our  modern  major  scale,  was  con- 
sidered voluptuous  and  enfeebling,  while  the 
Doric  mode,  an  idea  of  which  may  be  gained  by 
playing  a  scale,  all  on  white  keys,  beginning  with 
E,  was  thought  to  breathe  manliness,  vigor,  and 
dignity.  They  used  no  harmony,  and  intro- 
duced rhythm  only  by  the  metre  of  the  verses 
sung.  Consequently  it  is  easy  to  see  that  they 
can  have  had  from  their  music  but  little  aesthetic 
delight,  which  depends  on  the  grouping  into 
harmonic  or  rhythmic  forms  of  the  tonal  mate- 
rial; but  must  have  valued  it  chiefly  for  its  sen- 
suous beauty,  and  for  its  power  to  enhance  the 
expressiveness  of  their  poetry. 

It  is  nevertheless  noteworthy  that  all  three 
kinds  of  value  did  exist  in  the  music  of  the 
Greeks,  though  the  third  was  still  in  a  rudimen- 
tary stage.     As  a  result  of  the  generally  equal 

*3 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

length  of  their  verses  or  lines  of  poetry,  the 
melody  that  accompanied  them  tended  to  be  di- 
vided into  equal  sections  remotely  resembling 
our  modern  "  phrases  "  ;  and  these  sections 
tended  to  balance  each  other,  and  so  to  give  the 
sense  of  symmetrical  form.  Furthermore,  it 
was  customary  to  end  each  line  with  a  fall  of  the 
voice  analogous  to  the  downward  inflection  of 
a  speaking  voice  at  the  end  of  a  sentence.  These 
downward  inflections,  called  cadences,  from  a 
Latin  verb  meaning  "  to  fall,"  afforded  a  con- 
venient means  of  dividing  off  the  musical  as 
well  as  the  poetic  flow  into  definite  parts  like 
segments  in  a  piece  of  bamboo  or  the  inches  on 
a  tape-line  ;  and  in  the  subsequent  development 
of  musical  structure  these  divisions,  marked  by 
cadences,  became  the  indispensable  elements  in 
a  highly  complex  organism.  Thus  the  Greeks, 
in  spite  of  the  immaturity  of  their  music,  con- 
sidered in  and  for  itself,  did  actually  make  val- 
uable contributions  to  the  progress  of  the  art. 
Their  period  was  one  of  promise  rather  than 
of  fruition ;  but  it  contained  the  seeds  of 
further  growth.  It  is  often  called  the  Mono- 
phonic  or  "  one-voiced  "  period,  from  the  fact 
that    their   chants    were    purely   melodic,   em- 


THE      PERIODS    OF     MUSICAL      HISTORY 

ploying  but  one  voice  at  a  time,  without  har- 
monic support. 

With  the  simultaneous  employment  of  more 
than  one  voice,  music  passed  out  of  its  infancy. 
The  Polyphonic  period,  so  called  from  Greek 
words  signifying  "  many-voiced,"  extended, 
through  all  the  Middle  Ages,  up  to  so  recent 
a  date  as  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  there 
to  culminate  in  the  remarkable  compositions  of 
Palestrina.  In  duration  it  was  the  longest  of 
all  the  periods ;  but  this  is  not  surprising  when 
we  consider,  in  the  first  place,  the  almost  insu- 
perable difficulties  to  be  overcome  before  even 
two  voices  could  be  pleasantly  and  fluently  con- 
ducted together ;  in  the  second  place,  the  ab- 
sence of  all  prototypes  or  models  for  the  first 
experimenters  to  work  from  ;  and,  above  all,  the 
surprising  distance  that  separates  Palestrina's 
ingenious,  intricate,  and  beautiful  tone-fabrics, 
written  sometimes  in  as  many  as  sixteen  parts, 
from  the  rude  and  protoplasmic  chants  of  two 
voices,  singing  an  interval  of  a  "  fifth  "  apart, 
from  which  they  were  developed. 

That  type  of  chant  in  which  two  voices,  one 
a  fifth  higher  than  the  other,  sang  the  same  mel- 
ody, primitive  as  it  was,  and  intolerable  to  mod- 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

ern  ears,  was  to  its  originators  a  convenient  and 
pleasant  device.  It  was  convenient  because,  the 
natural  range  of  soprano  and  tenor  voices  being 
about  a  fifth  above  that  of  contraltos  and  basses, 
choirs  could  chant  at  this  interval  more  natur- 
ally than  at  the  octave.  It  was  pleasant  because, 
while  it  left  each  of  the  two  melodies  distinctly 
audible,  it  produced  by  their  combination  a  har- 
monic richness  that  must  have  fallen  on  mediaeval 
ears  with  an  unwonted  splendor.  Organurm,  as 
this  device  of  singing  in  fifths  was  called,  must 
be  ever  memorable  in  the  history  of  music  as 
the  beginning  of  harmony. 

After  musicians  had  once  taken  the  plunge, 
and  dared  to  make  different  melodies  sound 
simultaneously,  it  took  them  but  a  compara 
tively  short  time  (though  eras  in  music,  as  in 
geology,  are  long)  to  combine  the  parts  in  other 
intervals  than  the  fifth,  to  use  varying  intervals 
in  successive  chords,  to  add  more  voices,  and 
in  general  to  elaborate  in  every  way  their  tissue 
of  tones.  Adopting,  with  some  modifications, 
the  Greek  modes  as  the  prescribed  orbits  of  the 
individual  melodies,  they  produced  effects  of 
harmony  necessarily  very  unlike  our  modern 
ones,  which  are  built  upon  the  major  and  minor 

»6 


THE      PERIODS    OF     MUSICAL      HISTORY 

scales,  but  nevertheless  novel  and  in  their  way 
extremely  beautiful.  The  fabric  of  the  mediae- 
val ecclesiastical  music  was  made  up  of  a  succes- 
sion of  shifting  chords,  each  very  pure  and  sweet 
in  itself,  yet  without  those  definite  connections 
with  its  fellows  that  modern  habits  of  thought 
demand.  The  whole  effect  was  curiously  kalei- 
doscopic, mysterious,  and  vague.  Unity  de- 
pended, not  on  the  piece  being  in  any  one  key, 
which  it  never  was,  but  on  the  melodies  being 
coherent  and  expressive.  These  were  the  salient 
features,  the  harmony  was  ancillary  and  inci- 
dental. One  voice  after  another  came  out  from 
the  filmy  background,  sounded  for  a  moment 
above  the  rest,  and  subsided  again,  to  be  re- 
placed by  another.  Not  only  was  there  no  at- 
tempt at  a  definite  series  of  even  sections,  built 
up  into  recognizable  rhythms,  such  as  are  indis- 
pensable to  modern  music,  but  any  such  effect 
was  studiously  avoided.  The  effort  was  rather 
to  make  the  voices  interweave  inextricably  and 
untraceably.  The  entire  mass  was  in  constant 
flux  and  change,  a  body  of  lovely  and  expressive 
sound,  without  a  single  distinct  lineament,  or 
any  conceivable  whence  or  whither.  In  Pales- 
trina  we  have  the  style  at  its   acme,  vague,  iri-/ 

27 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

descent,  beautiful  with  a  mystical  and  unearthly 
beauty.  Beyond  the  point  it  reached  with  him, 
pure  polyphonic  music,  without  rhythmic  or 
harmonic  definition,  could  not  go.  Another 
critical  point  was  reached,  another  transformation 
was  imminent. 

By  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
moreover,  there  began  to  dawn  upon  men's 
minds  various  new  principles  of  musical  con- 
struction which  were  pregnant  with  possibilities 
for  a  far  wider  and  more  vital  development  than 
any  that  had  gone  before.  The  rapidity  with 
which  the  art  now  began  to  grow,  ramify,  and 
mature,  the  variety  of  the  new  tendencies,  and 
the  multiplicity  of  different  styles  or  orders  of 
art,  such  as  opera  and  oratorio,  fugue  and  so- 
nata, toward  which  they  led,  are  surprising.  In 
the  countless  centuries  before  Palestrina  music 
grew  slowly  and  uniformly,  like  a  plant ;  in  the 
short  three  hundred  years  between  the  birth  of 
Palestrina  in  1528  and  the  death  of  Beethoven 
in  1827,  it  had  its  inconceivably  rich  and  vari- 
ous blossoming,  and  Monteverde  and  Gluck, 
Corelli  and  Scarlatti,  Couperin  and  Rameau, 
Bach  and  Handel,  Haydn,  Mozart,  and  Beetho- 
ven, were  the  bright  flowers  it  now  put  forth. 

if 


THE      PERIODS    OF     MUSICAL      HISTORY 

Such  a  rapid  and  many-sided  advance  is  fairly 
bewildering ;  but  it  is  nevertheless  possible  to 
distinguish  in  the  movement  a  few  salient  and 
dominant  features,  more  significant  and  remark- 
able than  all  the  others.  From  our  present 
point  of  view,  the  labors  of  J.  S.  Bach  in  the 
fugue  and  suite  forms,  and  of  Haydn,  Mozart, 
and  Beethoven  in  the  sonata  form,  are  of  su- 
preme interest.  These  labors  were  guided  and 
fructified  by  several  new  principles  of  musical 
effect.* 

The  first  step  toward  new  fields  was  taken 
early  in  the  seventeenth  century  by  a  set  of  dar- 
ing reformers  in  Florence,  who,  boldly  discard- 
ing the  perfect  polyphonic  style  of  Palestrina, 
contrived  a  style  of  dramatic  music,  embodied 
in  small  operas,  in  which  single  voices  sing  more 
or  less  expressive  melodies  over  an  instrumental 
accompaniment  in  chords.  Crude  in  the  extreme 
as  were  necessarily  the  compositions  of  Caval- 
iere,  Caccini,  Peri,  and  their  fellows,  they  opened 
up  novel  paths,  because  they  had  to  rely  for  their 
effectiveness  largely  on  the  conduct  of  the  har- 
monies employed.     So  long  as  the  old  church 

*  These  principles  will  be  studied  more  in  detail  in  the  chap- 
ter on  The  Principles  of  Pure  Music. 

*9 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

modes  were  adhered  to,  to  be  sure,  the  harmonic 
style  remained  necessarily  vague,  wandering,  and 
monotonous  ;  but  gradually  the  composers  be- 
gan to  see  that,  by  altering  their  intervals,  they 
could  introduce  variety  and  contrast  into  their 
cadences,  making  one  line  end  on  one  chord, 
and  the  next  on  a  different  though  related  one, 
and  that  thus  they  could  make  coherent  the  suc- 
cessive phrases,  punctuated  by  the  cadences,  and 
at  the  same  time  set  them  in  an  opposition  that 
made  for  variety.  In  the  interests  of  definite- 
ness  of  cadence  and  an  obvious  distribution  of 
contrasted  yet  complementary  chords,  therefore, 
the  modes  were  slowly  transformed  into  the 
modern  scale,  and  music  became  at  last  harmon- 
ically  definite  and  firm.  All  the  tones  came  to 
be  conceived  as  grouped  around  certain  tonal 
centres,  which  could  be  manipulated  and  organ- 
ized like  the  masses  in  a  picture.  TJrusemerged 
the  principle  of  tonality  or  key,  and  inthe  course 
ofmrie  the  device  of  modulation  by  which  one 
passes  from  one  key  to  another.  Still  it  re- 
mained difficult  to  get  far  away  from  the  key  in 
which  one  started  out,  because  of  the  manner  of 
tuning,  which  made  only  a  few  keys  available  at 
once ;  but  J.  S.  Bach,  modifying  the  system  of 

30 


THE      PERIODS    OF     MUSICAL      HISTORY 

tuning  to  what  is  called  equal  temperament,* 
which  opens  the  doors  simultaneously  to  the 
entire  twelve  keys,  emancipated  music  entirely 
from  the  restrictions  of  the  ecclesiastical  modes, 
and  in  his  great  work,  "The  Well-  [or  Equally-] 
Tempered  Clavichord,"  demonstrated  practically 
the  use  of  all  the  twelve  keys  as  an  intimate  and 
compact  family.  By  his  time  the  principle  of 
tonality  was  firmly  established. 

A  second  principle  vital  to  modern  music  is 
that  of  "  thematic  development."  By  this  is 
meant,  first,  the  existence  in  the  music  of  cer- 
tain salient,  easily  recognizable  groups  of  tones, 
called  motifs,  subjects,  or  themes,  which  are  pre- 
sented to  the  hearer  at  the  outset,  and  impressed 
upon  him  by  their  unique  individuality  of  cut ; 
and  second,  that  subsequent  elaboration  of  these 
themes,  in  varied  but  still  recognizable  forms, 
which  corresponds  closely  with  the  process  by 
which  an  essayist  develops  an  idea,  a  mathema- 
tician proves  a  theorem,  or  a  preacher  elucidates 
a  text.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  German 
word  "  Satz,"  often  used  by  musicians  to  mean 
"  a  theme,"  signifies  primarily  a  thesis  or  prop- 

*  For  a  technical  explanation  of  equal  temperament,  see  Dr. 
Parry's  "Evolution  of  the  Art  of  Music,"  pp.  187-188. 

3* 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

osition  in  logic,  while  "  Durchfuhrung,"  used  to 
describe  the  development  of  the  theme,  means 
primarily  a  leading-through  or  bringing  to  an 
/issue.  Thus  the  process  of  thematic  develop- 
ment in  music  is  much  like  any  other  process 
of  intellectual  statement  and  proof.  Now  it  is 
evident  that  this  process,  which  is  indispensable 
to  all  the  higher  intellectual  forms  of  music,  re- 
quires in  the  first  place  definite,  concise,  and 
memorable  themes,  since  it  is  impossible  to  dis- 
cuss what  one  fails  to  grasp,  or  after  grasping, 
forgets.  As  the  proverb  says,  the  preparer  of 
a  ragout  of  hare  must  u  first  catch  his  hare." 
Similarly  musicians, before  they  could  make  their 
music  logical,  had  to  catch  their  themes.  But 
as  musical  material  up  to  the  time  of  Palestrina 
never  was  definite  or  memorable,  the  first  requi- 
site of  thematic  music  was  some  principle  by 
which  themes  could  be  defined.  This  principle 
was  found  in  the  time-measurement  of  tones.  So 
soon  as  a  group  of  tones  were  placed  in  measured 
relations  of  duration  to  one  another,  an  individ- 
ual theme  emerged,  and  could  be  elaborated. 
The  second  great  conquest  of  modern  music, 
then,  was  the  conquest  of  the  definite  theme  or 
motif,  strictly  measured  in  time,  and  of  those  de- 

3* 


THE      PERIODS    OF     MUSICAL      HISTORY 

vices  by  which  it  could  be  developed  in  an  ex- 
tended and  logical  discourse. 

The  third  notable  achievement  of  seventeenth 
century  composers  was  the  emancipation  of  mu- 
sic from  servitude  to  poetry,  and  the  establish- 
ment of  it  as  an  independent  art.  In  one  sense 
this  was  but  a  natural  outcome  of  its  new  qual- 
ities of  harmonic  and  thematic  definition,  lack- 
ing which  it  could  never  reach  independence. 
So  long  as  it  remained  in  itself  vague,  amorphous, 
inchoate,  it  was  constrained  to  be  but  a  hand- 
maid, to  content  itself  with  lending  eloquence 
or  atmosphere  to  the  utterances  of  its  sister  art; 
but  this  condition  of  dependence,  however  in- 
evitable for  a  time,  was  nevertheless  unfortunate, 
and  bound  to  be  eventually  outlived.  Music 
is  always  fatally  handicapped  by  association  with 
words.  In  the  first  place,  words  impose  upon 
it  a  concrete  meaning  immeasurably  more  trite, 
prosaic,  and  limited  than  that  abstract  and  in- 
definable meaning  to  the  heart  and  mind  which 
is  its  proper  prerogative ;  the  expressive  power 
of  music  really  begins  where  that  of  poetry  fails 
and  ceases.  In  the  second  place,  the  limitations 
of  all  vocal  music  are  in  many  ways  serious.  Not 
only  are  voices  incapable  of  sounding  readily  and 

33 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

with  certainty  many  intervals,  but  they  are  con- 
fined to  a  range  of  a  little  over  three  octaves,  and 
to  phrases  short  enough  not  to  overtax  the 
breath.  Instruments  are  free  from  all  these  dis- 
qualifications. They  produce  pure  tones,  with- 
out words,  the  most  celestial  of  artistic  materials  ; 
they  can  sound  any  interval ;  they  extend  over 
a  range  of  more  than  seven  octaves,  from  the 
deep  bass  of  the  organ  or  contrabass  to  the 
shrill  and  immaterial  treble  of  the  piccolo ;  and 
the  breadth  of  the  phrases  they  can  produce  is 
limited  not  by  their  own  mechanism,  but  only 
by  the  power  of  intellectual  synthesis  possessed 
by  listeners.  For  all  these  reasons,  instruments 
are  the  ideal  media  for  producing  music  ;  and 
never  until  they  supplanted  voices  could  music 
reach  its  complete  stature  as  a  mature  and  self- 
sufficient  art,  leaning  on  no  crutch,  borrowing 
no  raison  d'etre,  but  making  by  its  own  legiti- 
mate means  its  own  unique  effects. 

The  task  of  seventeeth  century  musicians  was, 
then,  in  large  part,  the  establishment  of  tonality 
and  the  hierarchy  of  keys,  contrasted  with  one 
another,  but  accessible  by  modulation  ;  the  crys- 
tallization, by  means  of  both  harmonic  and  met- 
rical definition,  of  individual  themes  out  of  the 

34 


THE      PERIODS    OF     MUSICAL      HISTORY 

amorphous  tonal  matrix  of  previous  eras,  and 
the  exploration  of  means  for  building  up  these 
themes  into  coherent  organisms  ;  and  lastly  the 
emancipation  of  the  art  thus  brought  into  full 
life  from  the  tyranny  of  association  with  words 
and  voices.  This  was  an  immense  task  ;  and  it 
is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  most  of  the  men 
engaged  in  it  never  attained  mastery  enough  to 
give  them  great  personal  prominence.  Theirs  was 
a  time  of  beginnings,  of  preparation  for  novel  and 
unprecedented  achievements.  The  early  opera- 
writers,  the  Italian  violinists,  the  German  organ- 
ists, and  the  clavichord  and  harpsichord  writers 
of  that  period,  men  like  Cavaliere  and  Caccini; 
Corelli  and  Scarlatti,  Sweelinck  and  Frescobaldi, 
Purcell,  Kuhnau,  and  Couperin,  are  chiefly 
known  to  us  as  preparers  of  the  soil,  and  sowers 
of  the  seed,  for  a  harvest  which  was  gathered  by 
later,and  probably  greater,  though  not  more  hon- 
orable men.  The  first  composer  after  Palestrina 
who  like  him  overtopped  all  his  fellows,  and 
brought  to  its  culmination  another  great  period, 
was  Johann  Sebastian  Bach. 

In  Bach's  style  we  find,  in  addition  to  the 
polyphonic  or  many-voiced  texture  of  Pales- 
trina, a  thematic  pointedness  and  logic,  and  a  har- 

35 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

monic  structure  which  are  entirely  unforeshad- 
owed  in  the  older  man.  The  fugue,  a  form 
which  he  carried  to  its  highest  pitch,  and  which 
was  admirably  suited  to  his  genius,  is  in  certain 
respects  allied  to  the  earlier  style,  though  in 
others  wholly  modern.  Like  the  ecclesiastical 
forms  of  Palestrina,  it  is  of  the  basket-work  type 
of  texture.  One  voice  begins  alone,  others  en- 
ter in  succession, and  all  wind  in  and  out  amongst 
one  another  almost  as  intricately  as  in  a  sixteenth 
century  madrigal.  On  the  other  hand,  the  fugue 
as  a  whole  begins  and  ends  in  some  one  key, 
and  throughout  its  progress  modulates  from  key 
to  key  with  well-planned  contrasts  and  firmly- 
controlled  movement.  Moreover,  a  single  defi- 
nite theme  or  subject  appears  at  the  outset  of 
the  piece,  and  stands  prominently  forth  through 
its  whole  extent ;  it  is  announced  by  the  first 
voice,  repeated  at  a  different  pitch  in  the  answer 
of  the  second,  reiterated  again  by  the  third  and 
fourth,  and  subsequently  made  the  basis  of  an 
ingenious,  varied,  and  extended  development. 
Finally,  although  some  of  Bach's  fugues  are  vo- 
cal, most  of  them  are  written  either  for  organ  or 
for  clavichord.  In  all  these  respects  his  work 
is  modern,  and  perhaps  most  of  all  is  it  modern 

36 


THE      PERIODS    OF     MUSICAL      HISTORY 

in  its  inexorable  logic,  its  subtlety  and  variety, 
and  in  its  poignant,  deeply  emotional  expres- 
siveness, which  is  always  held  within  the  bounds 
necessary  to  supreme  architectural  beauty.  The 
period  of  Bach  and  his  precursors,  sometimes 
called  the  "  polyphonic-harmonic  "  period,  be- 
cause in  it  the  modern  harmonic  system  was 
grafted  upon  the  polyphony  of  Palestrina,  re- 
mains to-day,  from  some  points  of  view,  the 
purest  and  noblest  period  of  musical  history. 

All  the  time  that  Bach,  in  the  privacy  of  an 
obscure  German  town,  was  writing  his  wonder- 
fully intricate  and  beautiful  polyphonic  music, 
the  world  about  him,  oblivious,  was  seeking  out  a 
quite  different  type  of  art.  It  is  a  surprising  fact 
that  Bach's  compositions  were  virtually  unknown 
for  fifty  years  after  his  death,  and  might  have  re- 
mained so  permanently  had  they  not  been  "  dis- 
covered "by  appreciative  students,  much  as  the 
receptacles  of  classical  lore  were  discovered  in  the 
Renaissance  after  the  long  darkness  of  the  Mid- 
dle Ages,  and  made  the  basis  of  an  intellectual 
revival.  Bach's  great  works,  too,  were  full  of  an 
undying  vitality  ;  but  for  a  long  time  their  po- 
tency had  to  remain  latent,  because  men  were  oc- 
cupied with  another  order  of  art,  a  different  set  of 

37 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

problems,  an  alien  style.  Ever  since  the  Floren- 
tine revolution,  when  the  polyphonic  texture  of 
mediaeval  music  was  abandoned  for  a  simple  mo- 
nodic  or  one- voiced  style,  in  which  a  melody  is 
accompanied  by  a  series  of  chords,  much  of  the 
musical  genius  of  the  world  had  been  devoted 
to  the  development  of  eloquent  single  melodies, 
and  of  suitable  harmonic  backgrounds  for  them. 
With  the  systematization  of  harmony  and  the 
establishment  of  definite  themes  this  type  of  art 
became  mature.  Composers  discerned  the  possi- 
bility of  building  up  whole  movements  to  which 
interest  could  be  given  by  the  statement  and  de- 
velopment of  one  or  more  themes,  contrasted 
both  in  character  and  in  key.  They  saw  that  the 
whole  could  be  unified  by  general  qualities  of 
style,  by  recurrence  of  the  themes,  and,  above 
all,  by  being  made  to  embody,  in  the  long  run, 
a  single  tonality, though  with  momentary  depar- 
tures from  it  for  the  sake  of  variety.  Working 
out  their  idea,  they  devised  a  type  of  structure 
which  has  remained  up  to  this  day  the  highest 
and  most  widely  useful  of  all  musical  forms.  The 
essential  features  of  "sonata-form,"  as  it  is  called, 
are,  in  the  first  place,  the  Exposition  of  two 
themes  or  subjects  of  discourse,  contrasting  both 

38 


THE      PERIODS    OF     MUSICAL      HISTORY 

in  character  and  in  key  ;  in  the  second  place,  the 
Development  of  these  themes,  the  exploitation 
of  their  latent  possibilities  ;  in  the  third  place, 
Restatement  of  them,  in  the  central  key  of  the 
movement,  bringing  all  to  a  point,  and  complet- 
ing the  cycle  of  Statement,  Argument,  and  Sum- 
mary. Sonata-form,  of  which  it  is  easy  to  see  the 
naturalness  and  beauty,  depends  for  its  unity, 
not  on  the  equal  interplay  of  many  voices,  like 
the  older  polyphonic  forms,  but  on  the  saliency, 
cumulative  development,  and  harmonic  interre- 
lations, of  single  themes.  We  may,  therefore, 
call  the  great  period  of  Haydn,  Mozart,  and 
Beethoven,  the  period  in  which  the  sonata-form 
attained  its  full  maturity,  the  "  harmonic  period," 
or,  in  view  of  the  complete  round  or  circuit  of 
themes  its  forms  exemplified,  the  "  cyclical-form 
period."  It  culminated  in  the  early  years  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  in  the  grand  works  of 
Beethoven's  maturity. 

After  Beethoven,  music  began   to  ramify  in  - 
so  many  directions  that  it  is  impossible  to  clas- 
sify its  phases  in  a  hard-and-fast  series.    It  had 
its    romanticists,    Schubert,    Schumann,   Men-  j 
delssohn,  Chopin,  who  uttered  with   freer  pas- 
sion  and   poetry  the   emotional   and  spiritual 

39 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

meanings  already  heard  in  Beethoven.  It  had 
its  realists,  notably  Berlioz  and  Liszt,  who,  at- 
tempting to  divert  it  into  the  realm  of  pictorial 
delineation  and  description,  have  been  followed 
by  all  the  horde  of  contemporary  writers  of  pro- 
gramme-music. It  had  its  nationalists,  men 
Jike  Glinka,  Smetana,  and  in  our  own  day,  Grieg 
and  Dvorak,  who  sought  to  impress  upon  its 
speech  a  local  accent.  Above  all,  it  had  one 
great  master,  Brahms,  who,  assimilating  the 
polyphony  of  Bach,  the  architectonic  structure 
of  Beethoven,  and  the  romantic  ardor  of  Schu- 
mann, added  to  them  all  his  own  austere  beauty 
and  profound  feeling.  But  we  are  too  near  these 
later  masters  to  get  any  general,  justly-propor- 
tioned view  of  them.  It  is  on  the  horizon  only 
that  mountains  cease  to  be  solitary  peaks,  and 
become  ranges,  the  trend  and  disposition  of 
which  can  be  accurately  plotted  on  the  maps. 
The  general  tendency  of  musical  evolution, 
down  to  Beethoven  so  clearly  traceable,  so  ob- 
viously continuous,  becomes  after  him  bafflingly 
complex. 

Fortunately,  this  complexity  need  not  em- 
barrass our  present  undertaking.  We  have  seen 
how,  in  the  gradual  and  laborious,  but  incessant 

40 


THE      PERIODS    OF      MUSICAL      HISTORY 

and  inevitable  growth  of  musical  art,  period  suc- 
ceeded period  as  the  artistic  faculty  of  man  con- 
stantly discerned  new  possibilities  of  beauty, 
sensuous,  expressive,  and  aesthetic,  in  the  tonal 
material  with  which  it  dealt.  We  have  seen 
how  this  evolution  tended  always  from  the  in- 
definite, incoherent,  and  homogeneous  toward 
the  definite,  coherent,  and  heterogeneous ;  and 
how  it  tended  to  embody  ever  higher  and  higher 
values,  beginning  with  the  mere  sense-stimula- 
tions of  savages  and  leading  up  to  the  highly 
complex  and  intellectual  sound-fabric  of  Beetho- 
ven, in  which  the  sensuous  and  emotional  values 
are  held  ever  subordinate  to  the  aesthetic.  We 
have  examined,  briefly  and  summarily,  the  spe- 
cial characteristics  of  the  successive  periods  into 
which  the  great  evolution  has  been  divided  by 
those  critical  points  which  the  nature  of  its  ma- 
terial determined.  With  the  general  view  of 
musical  history  thus  gained  held  clearly  in  mind, 
we  may  now  profitably  pass  to  that  more  de- 
tailed study  of  the  great  period  of  Beethoven, 
the  golden  age  of  pure  music,  which  is  the  espe- 
cial task  before  us. 

It  will   be  necessary,  however,  to  linger  still 
a  little  longer  on  the  threshold,  in  order  to  ex- 

4* 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

amine  in  more  detail  yet  the  two  scarcely  less 
interesting  periods  which  preceded  it, — the  pe- 
riods of  Palestrina  and  Bach, — and  to  define 
yet  more  precisely  those  fundamental  principles 
of  pure  music  on  the  efficacy  of  which  its  glory 
depended. 


CHAPTER     II 

PALESTRINA    AND    THE    MUSIC 

OF    MYSTICISM 


CHAPTER     II 

PALESTRINA      AND      THE 

MUSIC    OF    MYSTICISM 


T  has  been  often  pointed  out  by 
historians  and  critics  that  in  their 
early  stages  the  arts  of  archi- 
tecture, sculpture,  and  painting 
were  the  servants  of  religion. 
Nursed  through  their  infancy  by  the  cherish- 
ing hand  of  the  church,  they  emerged  into  the 
secular  world  only  with  their  comparative  ma- 
turity. Architecture,  which  in  our  day  and 
country  embodies  itself  chiefly  in  great  civic 
and  mercantile  buildings,  began  with  the  tem- 
ples of  the  pagan  Greeks  and  the  cathedrals  of 
the  mediaeval  Christians.  Sculpture  for  the  most 
part  delineated,  in  antiquity,  Egyptian  or  Greek 
gods  and  goddesses  ;  and  in  the  middle  ages, 
Christian  saints.     Even  painting,  which  at  the 

45 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

Renaissance  became  for  all  time  a  secular  art, 
inspired  by  its  own  ideals  and  controlled 
only  by  intrinsic  conditions,  commenced  by 
picturing  on  mediaeval  altar-pieces  and  frescoes 
the  heroes  of  sacred  story,  with  their  up- 
turned eyes  and  their  clasped  hands,  and  by 
symbolizing  the  dogmas  or  illustrating  the  nar- 
ratives of  its  task-master,  religion.  J.  A. 
Symonds,  in  the  third  part  of  his  "  Renaissance 
in  Italy,"  in  which  he  describes  at  length 
this  universal  dependence  of  art,  in  its  early 
stages,  on  the  church,  offers  the  following 
plausible  explanation  of  it :  u  Art  aims  at  ex- 
pressing an  ideal ;  and  this  ideal  is  the  transfig- 
uration of  human  elements  into  something  no- 
bler, felt  and  apprehended  by  the  imagination. 
Such  an  ideal,  such  an  all-embracing  glorifica- 
tion of  humanity,  exists  for  simple  and  unsophis- 
ticated societies  only  in  the  forms  of  religion."* 
It  is  not,  indeed,  until  art,  nurtured  in  clois- 
ters, acquires  definite  aims,  technical  methods, 
and  self-confidence,  that  it  can  put  off  its 
dependence  on  ecclesiastical  aid,  at  first  favor- 
able but  eventually  restrictive,  and  essay  a 
free  life. 

*  M  Renaissance  in  Italy."  Part  III.  The  Fine  Arts,  p.  6. 
46 


PALESTRINA      AND      MYSTICISM 

To  this  general  rule  music  is  no  exception — 
mediaeval  music  was  the  child,  nursling,  and 
handmaid  of  the  Church.  It  is  true  that  there 
did  grow  up,  in  the  lyrical  songs  of  troubadours 
and  minstrels,  a  kind  of  popular  music  that  had 
in  many  respects  more  vitality,  individuality,  and 
beauty  than  the  more  conventional  ecclesiastical 
art ;  and  that  the  latter,  at  many  stages  in  its  de- 
velopment, had  to  draw  fresh  inspiration  from 
the  humble  popular  minstrels.  But  in  the  mid- 
dle ages,  when  the  common  people  were  entirely 
illiterate,  and  all  intellectual  concerns  were  in 
the  hands  of  priests,  who  alone  could  read,  write, 
and  preserve  manuscripts  and  artistic  traditions, 
it  was  inevitable  that  the  only  recognized  music, 
stamped  with  the  seal  of  age  and  authority, 
should  be  that  of  the  ecclesiastical  choristers. 
The  student  of  the  infancy  of  music  has  to  di- 
rect his  attention,  not  to  the  mediaeval  world  at 
large,  but  to  the  cathedrals  and  the  monasteries 
of  that  intensely  clerical  age. 

For  the  modern  mind,  permeated  as  it  is  with 
the  instincts  of  liberty  and  individualism,  and 
perhaps  especially  for  the  American  mind,  nat- 
urally radical  and  irreverent,  it  is  difficult  to  con- 
ceive the  degree  in  which  all  the  rites,  customs, 

47 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

and  beliefs  of  the  mediaeval  Catholic  Church 
were  matters  of  traditional  authority.  There 
was  not  a  word  of  the  liturgy,  not  a  tone  of 
the  plain  chant  to  which  it  was  sung,  not  a 
gesture  of  the  priest  nor  a  genuflexion  of  the 
worshippers,  that  was  not  prescribed  by  what 
was  considered  supreme  dictation  and  hallowed 
by  immemorial  practice.*  The  liturgy,  or  text 
of  the  Mass,  the  skeleton  and  fixed  basis,  so 
to  speak,  of  the  ritual  as  a  whole,  began  to 
take  shape  in  the  hands  of  the  apostles  them- 
selves ;  was  developed  by  a  gradual  accretion 
of  prayers,  hymns,  responses,  and  readings 
from  Scripture ;  was  translated  into  Latin  and 
adopted  by  the  Roman  Church  ;  and  became 
fixed  in  practically  its  present  form  so  early 
as  the  end  of  the  sixth  century.  When  we 
consider  the  almost  superstitious  regard  in 
which  its  great  antiquity  caused  it  to  be  held, 
and  when  we  reflect  that  the  musical  setting  used 
with  it  was  considered  a  mere  appanage  to  the 
sacred  words,  we  can  understand  the  slow  de- 
velopment of  music  in  the  first  eleven  centuries 

*  See,  for  a  complete  description  of  the  Church  ritual,  Mr. 
Edward    Dickinson's    "  History    of    Music    in   the    Western 
Jy      Church,"  Chapters  HI  and  IV. 


PALESTRINA      AND      MYSTICISM 

of  the  Christian  era.  In  taking  its  first  steps 
music  was  not  merely  hampered  by  its  own 
uncertainty  and  infantile  feebleness ;  it  was 
paralyzed  by  servile  dependence  on  a  text 
swathed  within  the  bandages  of  priestly  conven- 
tion. 

The  only  form  of  music  used  in  the  Church, 
up  to  the  beginning  of  the  twelfth  century,  the 
only  form  of  music  ever  given  its  official  sanc- 
tion, was  the  Gregorian  chant  or  plain  song, 
which  consists  in  a  single  unaccompanied  series 
of  tones  set  to  the  liturgic  text,  intoned  by  priest 
or  choristers,  and  for  many  centuries  used 
exclusively  throughout  the  entire  service.  It 
has  not  only  no  harmony,  but,  properly  speak- 
ing, no  meter  or  rhythm,  being  dependent  for 
time-measurement  on  the  prose  text  it  accom- 
panies. "  It  follows"  says  Mr.  Dickinson,*  "  the 
phrasing,  the  emphasis,  and  the  natural  in- 
flections of  the  voice  in  reciting  the  text,  at 
the  same  time  that  it  idealizes  them.  It  is  a  sort 
of  heightened  form  of  speech,  a  musical  decla- 
mation, having  for  its  object  the  intensifying  of 
the  emotional  powers  of  ordinary  spoken  lan- 
guage.   It  stands  to  true  song  or  tune  in  much 

*Op.  cit. ,  p.  96. 

49 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

the  same  relation  as  prose  to  verse,  less  impas- 
sioned, more  reflective,  yet  capable  of  moving 
the  heart  like  eloquence."  Having  neither  har- 
monic nor  metrical  relationship,  it  had,  of  course, 
no  proper  structure  of  its  own  ;  and  so  long  as 
it  was  used  in  this  primary  way,  sung  in  uni- 
son or  even  in  two  parts  at  the  interval  of  an 
octave,  there  was  little  about  it  that  could  prop- 
erly be  called  musical  at  all. 

But  after  a  while  it  occurred  to  some  one  to 
let  a  second  set  of  voices  sing  the  same  chant  at 
v  an  interval  of  a  fifth  above  the  first.*  This 
scheme,  which,  simple  as  it  was,  contained  the 
seeds  of  wonderful  developments,  was  probably 
first  recommended  by  several  practical  advan- 
tages. When  the  chant  was  sung  by  two  choirs, 
one  made  up  of  the  high  voices  (soprano  and 
tenors)  and  the  other  of  the  low  voices  (con- 
traltos and  basses)  the  interval  of  the  octave  was 
practically  inconvenient  because  the  low  voices 
could  not  use  their  highest  tones  without  throw- 
ing the  high  voices  out  of  range,  and  the  high 
voices  could  not  use  their  lowest  tones  without 
similarly  embarrassing  the  low  ones.  When  the 
interval  of  the  fifth  was  used,  on  the  contrary, 

*See  Chapter  I,  p.  25. 


PALESTRINA     AND      MYSTICISM 

practically  all  the  tones  in  both  ranges,  which  are 
by  nature  about  a  fifth  apart,  *  became  avail- 
able. This  was  a  very  practical  argument  in 
favor  of  chanting  "  at  the  fifth."  An  even 
stronger  one  was  the  fact  that,  while  fifths,  like 
octaves,  are  harmonious  and  pleasant  to  the  ear, 
without  harshness  or  discordance,  they  are  richer 
than  octaves,  and  their  constituents  stand  out 
distinct  instead  of  merging  into  one  impression, 
as  do  tones  an  octave  apart ;  so  that  the  practice 
of  Organum,  or  chanting  at  the  fifth,  was  har- 
monically sweet  and  full  as  well  as  melodically 
interesting.  Organum  came  therefore  into  gen- 
eral and  wide  use  in  the  mediaeval  church.  Hue- 
bald,  a  monkish  writer  of  the  tenth  century,  gives 
the  following  example  of  a  fragment  of  plain 
chant  "  organized,"  or  sung  by  two  voices  a  fifth 
apart : 

Example  or  Organum. 

Fig.n. 


si  •   s>     a     a     -& 


&      V 


In      pa  -  tris    sem  -  pi  -  tur  -  nus     es         fi  -    li  -  us  . 

The  practice  of  Organum,  crude  as  it  may 

Range  of  Sopranos  Range  of  Contraltos 

and  Tenors.  and  Basses. 

Figure  I.  gpi=io=j&=  (Dto0-)       jg^=to-jfeE;(QtoC.) 

(A  fifth  lower.) 

5" 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

seem  to  modern  ears,  was  of  immense  historical 
importance,  as  the  first  embodiment  of  that 
principle  of  combining  various  parts  simultane- 
ously which  in  due  time  produced  all  the  re- 
sources of  polyphony  and  of  harmony.  It  is 
not  necessary  to  examine  here,  in  detail,  all  the 
stages  of  that  long  and  weary  journey  which  the 
mediaeval  composers  made  from  this  starting- 
point  of  Organum  to  the  highly  developed  con- 
trapuntal music  of  the  sixteenth  century.  In  all 
its  aspects  it  was  essentially  a  growth  in  definite- 
ness,  coherence,  and  heterogeneity.  The  parts 
were  combined  with  more  and  more  freedom, 
both  as  to  their  comparative  rate  of  movement 
and  as  to  the  purity  of  the  chords  they  made  at 
prominent  points  (less  harmonious  intervals  be- 
ing gradually  tolerated);  the  number  of  parts 
was  increased,  in  spite  of  the  great  difficulties 
that  each  additional  part  must  have  meant  to 
writers  with  inadequate  experience  and  models ; 
experiments  were  tried  in  combining  together 
tunes  already  composed,  popular  songs  and  the 
like,  trimming  and  twisting  and  compressing  or 
expanding  them  to  make  them  fit ;  the  device  of 
imitation,  of  which  more  will  be  said  presently, 
was   introduced  in   the   interests  of  sense  and 

5* 


PALESTRINA      AND      MYSTICISM 

coherence ;  *  one  experiment  after  another  was 
tried,  one  resource  after  another  was  utilized, 
until  eventually,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  the  art 
of  ecclesiastical  counterpoint  f  was  fully  estab- 
lished. 

To  this  sixteenth-century  music  it  is  difficult 
for  modern  ears  to  listen  appreciatively.  The 
exact  value  and  significance  of  chords,  cadences, 
and  melodic  phrases,  like  the  exact  significance 
of  words  in  language,  depends  so  largely  upon 
current  usage  and  the  mental  habits  it  reposes 
upon,  that  it  is  as  much  an  effort  for  modern 
listeners  to  comprehend  mediaeval  music  as  it  is 
for  the  modern  reader  to  understand  the  vocab- 
ulary of  Chaucer  or  Shakespeare.  Just  as 
words,  in  the  course  of  long  service,  gradually 
take  on  new  associations,  new  shades  of  sug- 
gestion, and  even,  in  extreme  cases,  a  signifi- 
cance quite  opposite  to  their  original  one,  so 
the  material  of  music,  as  used  to-day,  has  hun- 
dreds of  associations  and  subtle  shades  of  value, 

*See  page  61. 

|  The  word  counterpoint,  from  the  Latin  "punctus  contra 
punctum,"  meaning  note  (or  point)  against  note,  describes  that 
mode  of  writing  in  which  various  melodies  progress  simultane- 
ously, or  one  against  another. 

53 


BEETHOVEN  AND  HIS  FORERUNNERS 

developed  only  during  the  last  three  hundred 
years,  but  nevertheless  permeating  our  minds  so 
thoroughly  that  it  is  almost  impossible  for  us  to 
think  them  away. 

—  Perhaps  the  most  inveterate  of  these  modern 
habits  of  musical  thought  is  the  harmonic  habit. 
It  is  second  nature  for  us  to  conduct  all  our  mu- 
sical thinking  in  terms  of  harmonic  relations.  We 
think  of  chords  as  related  to  one  another  in  cer- 
tain fixed  ways,  as  forming  groups  or  clusters  just 
as  definite  as  the  groups  of  atoms  in  a  chemical 
molecule.  It  is  not  more  sure,  for  example,  that 
in  a  molecule  of  water  two  atoms  of  hydrogen 
are  engaged  or  held  in  combination  by  one  atom 
of  oxygen,  than  it  is  that  in  any  key  the  domi- 
nant and  subdominant  chords  are  held  in  the  po- 
sition of  subordinate  companions  by  the  tonic 
chord,  and  that  the  other  chords  of  the  key  are 
held  in  more  remote  but  still  perfectly  fixed  re- 
lations with  this  Paterfamilias  of  the  harmonic 
family.  We  think  of  the  chords  in  a  phrase,  of 
whatever  length  and  complexity,  as  progressing 
in  a  coherent  series,  as  intertwined  one  with  an- 
other by  manifold  relationships,  and  as  embody- 
ing, all  together,  some  one  key.  For  us,  every 
composition  is  in  some  particular  key  as  inevit- 

54 


PALESTRINA      AND      MYSTICISM 

ably  as  every  poem  or  essay  is  in  some  particu- 
lar language.  We  modulate  freely,  to  be  sure, 
from  key  to  key  ;  but  this  rather  intensifies  than 
obliterates  our  sense  of  key,  just  as  the  process 
of  translating  from  one  language  to  another  in- 
tensifies our  sense  of  the  peculiar  idioms  of  each. 
Our  whole  manner  of  thought  would  be  as  in- 
describably shocked  by  a  passage  which  placed 
together,  cheek  by  jowl,  chords  belonging  to  dif- 
ferent keys,  as  by  a  sentence  every  word  of  which 
was  drawn  from  a  different  tongue. 

Now  this  habit  of  thought  simply  did  not  exist 
in  Palestrina  and  his  contemporaries  and  fore- 
runners ;  it  had  not  been  evolved.  The  bit  of 
Organum  given  in  Figure  II  is  hideous  to  mod- 
ern ears  just  because  it  violates  at  every  step  our 
harmonic  sense  ;  it  was  pleasant  to  its  composer, 
whoever  he  was,  because  he  had  no  harmonic  sense 
to  be  violated.  To  us,  the  sound  of  a  tone  with 
its  fifth  suggests  immediately  and  inexorably  the 
whole  "triad"  founded  on  that  tone — root,  third, 
fifth, and  octave — and  the  key  we  consider  it  to 
be  in.  The  sound  of  the  tone  and  its  fifth  sum- 
mons up  in  our  imagination  the  whole  chord  and 
its  key  just  as  automatically  as  the  sight  of  a 
horse's  head  arouses  in  us  an  image  of  the  trunk, 

55 


W 


BEETHOVEN  AND   HIS  FORERUNNERS 

legs,  and  tail  that  accompany  it.  This  being  the 
case,  the  bit  of  Organum  quoted  means  for  us  a 
series  of  abrupt  transitions  from  key  to  key,  with- 
out warning,  reason,  or  coherence.  It  is  musical 
nonsense,  gibberish,  delirium.  To  its  compos- 
er, on  the  contrary,  it  was  merely  an  agreeable 
combination  of  two  pleasing  melodies  in  a  har- 
monious interval.  The  chords  used  had  for  him 
no  implications,  no  necessary  relations,  the  ob- 
servance of  which  made  sense,  the  violation  non- 
sense. They  were  pleasant  combinations  of 
sounds  formed  by  the  melodies  in  their  progress  ; 
and  that  was  all.  Even  more  striking  becomes 
the  contrast  between  mediaeval  and  modern  usage 
in  the  more  mature  music  of  the  later  contrapun- 
tal epoch.  Palestrina,  for  example,  begins  a 
Stabat  Mater  as  follows : 


Fig.  HI. 


Here  the  first  three  chords,  a  modern  musician 
would  say,  are  in  as  many  keys.     The  first  is  the 

56 


PALESTRINA      AND      MYSTICISM 

triad  of  A-major,  the  second  that  of  G-major,  and 
the  third  that  of  F-major.  The  coherence  of  the 
passage  depends,  in  fact,  entirely  on  the  melo- 
dies ;  the  chords  they  form  have  no  harmonic 
cohesiveness.  For  the  old  composers,  in  whose 
scores  hundreds  of  such  passages  may  be  found, 
harmony  was  still  a  sensuous,  not  an  intellectual 
or  aesthetic  agent. 

Another  peculiarity  of  their  harmonic  style  re- 
sulted from  their  attitude  toward  dissonances,  or 
chords  containing  harsh  intervals.  Dissonance, 
as  we  shall  have  frequent  occasion  to  see,  plays 
an  important  part  in  modern  music,  both  as  an 
indispensable  element  in  design  and  as  a  means 
of  peculiar  emotional  expressiveness.  In  the 
sixteenth  century,  on  the  contrary,  dissonances 
were  admitted  in  the  harmonic  fabric  but  spar- 
ingly, and  when  admitted  were  subject  to  strin- 
gent rules,  the  purpose  of  which  was  to  mollify 
their  harshness.  The  result  was  not  only  still 
further  to  preclude  the  sense  of  harmonic  se- 
quence and  coherence  so  essential  to  modern  ears, 
and  produced  largely  by  the  skilful  use  of  dis- 
sonance merging  into  consonance,  but  also  to 
limit  the  expressive  powers  of  music  to  that  range 
of  feeling  which  is  aroused  by  the  purest,  clear- 

57 


BEETHOVEN     AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

est,  and  most  mellifluous  chords  sounding  con- 
tinuously, without  contrast  or  relief. 

But  if  the  music  of  the  sixteenth  century  was 
lacking  in  harmonic  cogency  and  intensity,  it  was 
not  for  that  reason  either  incoherent  or  inexpres- 
sive. It  had  its  own  sort  of  coherence,  its  own 
type  of  eloquence,  both  depending  on  melodic 
rather  than  on  harmonic  qualities.  Music  was  to 
Palestrina  and  his  fellows  entirely  a  matter  of 
melody,  not  of  harmony  at  all.  The  reader  needs 
only  to  glance  again  at  Figure  III,  attending  not 
to  the  chords  and  their  sequence,  but  to  the  in- 
dividual voices,  one  after  another,  to  see  that  in 
their  own  way  the  phrases  hang  together  firmly, 
and  say  efficiently  what  they  mean.  Each  of  the 
four  voices  has  an  intelligible  and  expressive  part, 
and  if  together  they  sound  a  little  strange,  singly 
they  are  eminently  good.  The  more  one  studies 
this  old  music  the  more  one  realizes  that  it  is  all 
melody ;  from  beginning  to  end,  from  top  to 
bottom,  the  mediaeval  scores  sing.  They  are  not, 
like  many  modern  works,  full  of  inert,  lifeless 
matter,  tones  put  in  to  fill  out  the  harmonies, 
and  having  no  melodic  excuse  for  being.  In  the 
modern  monophonic  style,  in  which  but  one  mel- 
ody sings,  the  remaining  parts  are  almost  inevit- 

5» 


PALESTRINA      AND      MYSTICISM 

ably  treated  by  the  composer  as  affording  rather 
a  logical  sequence  of  harmonies  than  a  subsid- 
iary tissue  of  melodic  strands.  In  the  sixteenth 
century,  on  the  other  hand,  harmony  was  the 
accident,  melody  the  essence ;  any  chord  would 
do  very  well  in  any  place,  provided  it  were  con- 
sonant enough  not  to  offend  the  ear;  but  every 
tone  must  have  a  melodic  reason  for  being ;  it 
must  be  a  point  in  a  line ;  all  the  lines  must  be 
conducted  with  draughtsmanlike  deftness  and 
economy.  Melodic  life  is  accordingly  the  su- 
preme trait  of  the  style  well  named  polyphonic. 
And  yet,  here  we  encounter  still  another  dif- 
ficulty introduced  by  modern  habits  of  thought. 
To  us  nowadays  melody  means,  not  merely  a 
series  of  tones  having  that  sort  of  elementary  con- 
secutiveness  which  we  find  in  Palestrina,  for  ex- 
ample, but  a  series  of  tones  divided  up  into  sev- 
eral definite  segments  which  in  someway  balance, 
complement,  and  complete  one  another.  The 
first  phrase  of  "  Yankee  Doodle"  has  "  elemen- 
tary consecutiveness,"  but  it  does  not  satisfy  our 
melodic  sense.  We  must  add  the  second  phrase, 
equal  to  it  in  length,  which  echoes  and  reenforces 
it,  and  the  third  phrase,  twice  as  long  as  either, 
which  rounds  out  the  whole  tune  to  a  complete 

59 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

period.  In  short,  just  as  harmony  involves  for 
us  chord  structure  and  interrelation,  melody  in- 
volves for  us  metrical  balance,  response,  sym- 
metry— that  recognizable  recurrence,  to  use  the 
most  general  term  possible,  which  we  call 
"rhythm."  Mere  eloquent  intoning,  without 
repetition  and  balance  of  phrases,  is  to  us  no 
more  "tune"  than  prose  is  verse.  Here  again 
we  are  in  danger  of  letting  our  own  habits  of 
thought  confuse  our  understanding  of  an  unfa- 
miliar type  of  art.  The  truth  is,  Palestrina  does 
not  write  "  tunes,"  in  the  modern  sense  of  the 
word.  He  lived  and  wrote  before  musical  evo- 
lution had  given  the  world  that  principle  of  met- 
rical structure  so  essential  to  modern  music  ;  and 
his  style,  therefore,  lacks  definite  meter,  lacks 
all  rhythm  save  that  vague  one  superposed  upon 
it  by  his  Latin  prose  text.  His  music,  devoid  of 
any  regular  segmental  division,  is  indeed  a  sort 
of  tonal  prose,  as  massive  and  majestic  as  the 
"  Religio  Medici." 

One  other  technical  peculiarity  of  the  music 
of  the  polyphonic  period  deserves  notice  here,  as 
it  involved  a  principle  destined  to  assume  great 
importance  in  later  stages  of  art.  The  poly- 
phonic writers  often  introduced  successive  voices 

60 


PALESTRINA      AND      MYSTICISM 

with  an  identical  formula  of  notes,  which  by  rep- 
etition came  to  have  somewhat  the  virtue  of  a 
motif  or  subject  in  giving  to  the  music  ration- 
ality and  sequence.  They  had  not  as  yet,  to  be 
sure,  enough  experience  in  composing  definite 
themes  strictly  measured  in  time  to  make  these 
embryonic  motifs  either  very  long  or  very  dis- 
tinct, but  they  did  make  and  utilize  subjects 
striking  enough  to  be  remembered  and  recog- 
nized. In  this  way  they  introduced  the  import- 
ant device  of  "  Imitation."  This  imitating 
of  one  part  by  another,  even  when  crudely  car- 
ried out,  gave  a  certain  air  of  intention  and  fore- 
thought to  what  without  it  would  have  been  a 
haphazard  utterance  of  tones,  and  in  later  times, 
when  developed  to  a  high  pitch  of  perfection  in 
the  fugue  and  allied  forms,  became  a  powerful 
agent  for  securing  intelligibility.  Meanwhile, 
aswe  haveseen,theintelligibility  of  the  sixteenth- 
century  music  depended  chiefly  on  the  fine  mel- 
odic cogency  and  expressiveness  of  its  individual 
voice  parts.  Although  time-measurement  was 
well  understood,  melody  was  without  metrical 
structure  and  rhythmic  organization.  Harmony 
was  the  art  of  making  pleasant  sounds  by  bring- 
ing the  voices  together,  at  prominent  moments, 

61 


BEETHOVEN  AND   HIS  FORERUNNERS 

on  consonant  chords  ;  it  took  no  heed  of  chord 
relation,  of  tonality,  or  or  orderly  modulation ; 
and  it  used  dissonance  with  extreme  conserva- 
tism. Such,  in  sum,  were  the  most  notable  tech- 
nical peculiarities  of  that  polyphonic  period 
which  Palestrina  brought  to  its  culmination. 

Giovanni  Pierluigi  Sante  da  Palestrina,  named 
Palestrina  from  the  place  of  his  birth,  which  was 
a  small  town  in  the  Campagna  not  far  from  Rome, 
was  born  of  humble  parents  about  the  year  1 524. 
About  1550  he  went  to  Rome  as  teacher  of  the 
boy-singers  in  the  Capella  Giulia  of  the  Vatican. 
All  the  rest  of  his  life  was  spent  in  Rome,  in  va- 
rious posts  in  the  service  of  the  church,  and  in 
studious  and  uneventful  labor  at  his  great  com- 
positions. Although  a  married  man,  he  was 
made  in  1554  one  of  the  singers  in  the  Papal 
choir  by  Pope  Julius  III,  to  whom  he  had  ded- 
icated a  set  of  masses  ;  on  the  accession  of  Pope 
Paul  IV  a  year  later  he  was  dismissed,  and  became 
ill  with  anxiety  as  to  the  support  of  his  growing 
family;  he  was  nevertheless  almost  immediately 
appointed  music-director  of  the  Lateran  Church, 
and  later  he  held  successively  the  posts  of 
music-director  in  the  Church  of  Santa  Maria 
Maggiore,  "  Composer  to  the  Pontifical  Choir," 

62 


PALESTRINA      AND      MYSTICISM 

leader  of  the  choir  of  St.  Peter's,  and  music- 
director  to  Cardinal  Aldobrandini.  Aside  from 
these  meagre  and  arid  details,  unfortunately,  lit- 
tle is  known  of  the  man  Palestrina.  His  private 
life  is  almost  a  blank.  The  one  story  oftenest 
told  of  him,  that  his  Mass  of  Pope  Marcellus, 
produced  in  1565,  was  written  to  convince  the 
reforming  Council  of  Trent  of  the  possibility  of 
purging  church  music  of  the  trivialities  and 
abuses  which  had  crept  into  it,  has  been  discred- 
ited by  recent  historians.  Mythical  also  seems 
to  be  the  story  of  Palestrina's  one  great  popular 
triumph,  in  1575,  a  year  of  jubilee,  when  fifteen 
hundred  residents  of  the  composer's  native  town 
are  said  to  have  entered  Rome  in  three  com- 
panies, singing  his  works,  and  led  by  himself. 
The  story  is  a  severe  tax  on  the  credulity  of  any- 
one whose  ideas  of  chorus-singing  are  based  on 
modern  methods. 

In  character  Palestrina  was  devout,  pious, 
frugal,  and  industrious.  Though  so  few  records 
exist,  we  can  guess  his  industry  from  the  mass 
of  the  work  he  achieved,  and  his  honor  and 
sense  of  responsibility  from  his  anxiety  when  the 
support  of  his  family  seemed  in  danger.  As  to 
his  piety,  all  his  music  is  one  eloquent  demon- 

63 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

stration  of  it.  Nor  is  it  without  verbal  testimony 
in  the  dedications  and  inscriptions  on  his  man- 
uscripts. In  dedicating  his  first  book  of  motets 
to  Cardinal  d'Este  he  expressed  his  artistic  con- 
victions as  follows  :  "  Music  exerts  a  great  in- 
fluence on  the  minds  of  mankind,  and  is  intended 
not  only  to  cheer  these,  but  also  to  guide  and 
control  them,  a  statement  which  has  not  only 
been  made  by  the  ancients,  but  which  is  found 
equally  true  to-day.  The  sharper  blame,  there- 
fore, do  those  deserve  who  misemploy  so  great 
and  splendid  a  gift  of  God  in  light  or  unworthy 
things,  and  thereby  excite  men,  who  of  them- 
selves are  inclined  to  all  evil,  to  sin  and  misdo- 
ing. As  regards  myself,  I  have  from  youth  been 
affrighted  at  such  misuse,  and  anxiously  have  I 
avoided  giving  forth  anything  which  could  lead 
anyone  to  become  more  wicked  or  godless.  All 
the  more  should  I,  now  that  I  have  attained  to 
riper  years,  and  am  not  far  removed  from  old 
age,  place  my  entire  thoughts  on  lofty,  earnest 
things,  such  as  are  worthy  of  a  Christian." 
When,  in  1594,  Palestrina  died,  almost  his  last 
words,  whispered  to  his  son  Igino,  directed  the 
publication  of  his  latest  manuscript  works,  "  to 
the  glory  of  the  most  high  God,  and  the  wor- 
ship of  His  holy  temple." 

64 


PALESTRINA      AND      MYSTICISM 

A  sentence  in  the  dedication  by  Palestrina  just 
cited  affords  us  as  serviceable  a  key  as  we  could 
desire  to  the  fundamental  temper  or  mood  of 
mind  which  underlay  the  type  of  art  he  repre- 
sents. The  technical  peculiarities  of  this  art  al- 
ready traced  in  the  foregoing  pages,  do  not  in 
themselves  explain  it ;  they  are,  indeed,  but 
manifestations  of  a  deeper  spirit  underneath,  a 
spirit  that  was  as  characteristic  of  the  mediaeval 
mind  as  idealism  is  of  the  modern  mind.  Incom- 
mensurate as  were  the  technical  resources  of  the 
mediaeval  composer  with  ours,  their  whole  men- 
tal temper  and  outlook  upon  life  was  in  even 
more  striking  contrast  with  the  modern  attitude. 
We  have,  therefore,  next  to  ask  :  What  was  the 
most  characteristic  peculiarity  of  this  age  ?  What 
was  its  most  pervasive  general  trait?  What  was 
the  one  dominant  quality  in  which  most  of  Pal- 
estrina's  contemporaries,  for  all  their  minor  dif- 
ferences, were  alike? 

Palestrina  himself  suggests  the  answer  to  such 
questions.  "  The  sharper  blame,  therefore,"  he 
writes,  "  do  those  deserve  who  misemploy  so 
great  and  splendid  a  gift  of  God  in  light  or  un- 
worthy things,  and  thereby  excite  men,  who  of 
themselves  are  inclined  to  all  evil,  to  sin  and 
misdoing."  This  setting  in  antithesis  of  "  men, 

6s 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

who  of  themselves  are  inclined  to  all  evil,"  with 
the  attribution  of  a  "great  and  splendid  gift  "  to 
a  God  conceived  as  remote  from  men  though  be- 
neficent to  them,  exemplifies  the  essence  of  that 
mediaeval  view  of  life  which  we  wish  to  under- 
stand, and  for  which  perhaps  the  best  single  name 
is  mysticism.  The  mystic  begins  his  philosophy 
with  a  sharp  sundering  of  himself,  considered  as  an 
individual  existing  in  time  and  space,  with  earthly 
body,  finite  mind,  and  human  passions,  from  what 
he  considers  supreme,  formless,  and  eternal  good. 
In  common  with  other  men,  he  has  his  instinc- 
tive perceptions  of  the  divine  ;  but  unlike  other 
men  he  cuts  off  very  sharply  the  divine  thus 
perceived  from  the  real  world  in  which  he  eats 
and  drinks,  works  and  plays,  lives  and  dies.  His 
is  a  world  of  strong  contrasts,  of  extreme  an- 
tithesis— the  world  that  mystical  terminology 
divides  into  "  apparent  and  real,"  "  divine  and 
carnal,"  "  temporal  and  eternal."  His  intuition 
of  what  is  beyond  the  veil  of  mortality,  absolute, 
permanent,  serves  only  to  emphasize  more  poig- 
nantly his  own  frailty,  partiality,  and  transi- 
ence. He  not  only  hypostatizes  his  own  ideal, 
his  dream  and  aspiration  of  what  ought  to  be, 
making  of  it,  as  all  men  do,  a  real  objective  ex- 

66 


PALESTRINA      AND      MYSTICISM 

istence,  but  he  then  cuts  it  off  from  himself, 
makes  it  a  touchstone  of  all  the  dross  that  in 
him  exists  alongside  the  pure  gold,  and  while  he 
attributes  all  virtue  to  this  "  other  "  or  "  be- 
yond "  projected  by  his  unconscious  imagina- 
tion, reserves  to  his  present  actual  self,  as  di- 
rectly known,  all  wickedness,  sin,  and  failure. 
God  is  perfect,  but  remote  ;  man  is  near — and 
base. 

This  was  the  characteristic  attitude  of  relig- 
ious-minded men  in  the  middle  ages.  If  to  us 
it  may  seem  pathetically  childish  and  supersti- 
tious, we  should  not  judge  it  without  remember- 
ing the  epoch  of  which  it  was  a  part.  When  we 
reconstruct  in  imagination  that  historic  moment, 
that  peculiar  inheritance  and  environment  of  the 
sixteenth  century  Europeans,  it  is  hard  to  con- 
ceive how  else  they  could  have  interpreted  the 
world.  Theirs  was  an  age,  we  must  remind 
ourselves,  of  violence  and  bloodshed,  of  greed, 
hypocrisy,  lust,  and  faithlessness.  Craft  and 
cruelty  reigned  in  places  of  power,  and  the  minds 
of  the  common  people  groped  in  the  obscurity 
of  gross  ignorance,  made  even  darker  by  fitful 
flashes  of  superstition.  The  poor  were  ground 
down  by  tyrannies  and  oppressions,  the  power- 

67 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

ful  were  tormented  by  constant  dread  of  treach- 
ery and  assassination.  Plagues  and  pestilence, 
war  and  famine  and  drought,  made  physical  ex- 
istence miserable  ;  priestly  bigotry  and  dogma- 
tism crushed  all  mental  initiative.  It  is  not  sur- 
prising that  humanity,  in  the  midst  of  such  con- 
ditions, failed  to  recognize,  as  the  source  of  its 
beliefs,  its  own  latent  virtue ;  the  wonder  is 
rather  that  it  succeeded  in  rising  at  all  to  the 
intuition  of  a  holiness  which,  by  a  natural  error, 
it  conceived  as  entirely  severed  from  itself.  It 
was  much  to  arrive  at  this  point.  The  object 
of  the  present  analysis  is  not  to  discredit  the 
mediaeval  conception  of  the  world,  but,  by  point- 
ing out  its  peculiarities,  to  throw  light  on  the 
music  which  was  one  of  its  profoundest  utter- 
ances. 

The  most  familiar,  and  in  some  respects  the 
most  characteristic,  element  of  mysticism  is  its 
ecstatic,  devout  attitude  towards  the  deity  or 
Absolute  it  worships.  The  mystic  throws  him- 
self on  the  ground  before  his  God,  so  to  speak, 
in  an  ecstasy  of  complete  self-abandonment  and 
surrender.  He  is  utterly  prone,  passive,  will-less. 
His  worship  is  the  most  complete,  the  most  de- 
voted worship  of  which  there  is  record.     The 

68 


PALESTRINA      AND      MYSTICISM 

Greek  pagans  might  sacrifice  a  lamb  or  an  ox  at 
the  altars  of  their  gods,  the  mystic  sacrifices 
nothing  less  than  himself,  his  very  personality. 
He  desires  no  reciprocal  relations  with  his  deity, 
makes  no  reservations  in  his  commerce  with  it, 
retains  no  claim  to  independence,  seeks  no  spec- 
ial favors ;  what  he  longs  for,  whole-heartedly 
and  with  a  passionate  fervor,  is  complete  absorp- 
tion, utter  annihilation.  In  the  trances  of  the 
devotees,  consciousness  dwindles  to  a  point,  all 
sense  of  individuality  lapses,  perception,  sensa- 
tion, thought  even,  flag  and  cease,  and  there  re- 
mains only  a  vast,  vague  sense  of  the  infinite 
self  in  which  the  human  self  is  dissolved  and 
obliterated. 

So  prominent  a  feature  in  this  longing  or  ab- 
sorption in  the  infinite,  however,  was  the  char- 
acteristic mystical  condemnation  of  the  finite, 
that  an  account  of  the  relations  of  mystical  be- 
lief and  practice  to  the  affairs  of  actual  life  re- 
duces itself  largely  to  a  series  of  negative  state- 
ments. Closely  connected  with  the  dogma  of 
the  supreme  worth  of  the  absolute,  and  produc- 
ing even  more  conspicuous  effects  than  that, 
was  the  obverse  dogma  of  the  worthlessness  of 
the    immediate,  of  whatever    could  be    called 

69 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

"  this,"  "  now,"  or  "  here."  Love  of  God  was 
considered  to  involve  contempt  of  man,  and  since 
man  was  nearer,  more  immediate  in  experience, 
than  God,  mysticism  expressed  itself,  historic- 
ally, very  largely  in  negations.  It  acted,  in  all 
departments  of  life,  and  on  all  planes — the  phy- 
sical, the  intellectual,  and  the  emotional  or  spir- 
itual—  as  an  anti-naturalistic  force,  for  which, 
perhaps,  the  best  general  name  is  asceticism. 

On  the  physical  plane,  asceticism  took  the 
form  of  abstinence  and  mortification  of  the  flesh. 
In  its  milder  phases  it  prompted  merely  the  re- 
fusal of  all  the  natural  calls  of  instinct  and  appe- 
tite. Because  it  was  natural  to  hunger,  asceti- 
cism required  men  to  fast ;  because  to  sleep  was 
natural,  it  counselled  vigils  ;  because  men  natu- 
rally enjoy  women's  love,  material  well-being, 
and  personal  initiative,  monastic  orders  imposed 
the  triple  oath  of  celibacy,  poverty,  and  obedi- 
ence. Of  course  it  is  true  that  there  were  pos- 
itive benefits  to  be  derived  from  all  these  modes 
of  discipline,  and  that  much  could  be  argued  in 
their  favor  by  mere  common-sense ;  but  over  and 
above  their  positive  virtues  there  was  about  them 
an  opposition  to  nature,  a  violence  to  human  in- 
stincts, that  even  more  irresistibly  commended 

70 


PALESTRINA      AND      MYSTICISM 

them  to  true  ascetics.  A  still  further  applica- 
tion of  the  same  principle  was  mortification  of 
the  flesh.  Indian  Jogis,  Mohammedan  dervishes 
and  fakirs,  Christian  cenobites  and  anchorites, 
all,  in  a  word,  who  held  the  mystical  doctrine  of 
the  absolute  opposition  of  body  and  spirit,  be- 
lieved that  to  mortify  the  flesh  was  to  vivify  the 
soul,  and  carried  out  their  belief  with  the  help 
of  a  thousand  engines  of  penance. 

On  the  intellectual  plane,  the  same  distrust  of 
man  and  of  nature  prompted  an  agelong  oppo- 
sition to  science,  to  independent  metaphysical 
or  religious  thinking,  and  indeed  to  all  forms  of 
free  mental  activity.  The  story  of  Galileo  sum- 
moned before  the  seven  cardinals  at  Rome  and 
forced  to  deny  his  belief  in  the  heretical  doctrine 
that  the  earth  revolved  round  the  sun  is  typical  of 
the  experiences  of  almost  all  venturesome  think- 
ers in  the  middle  age.  The  application  of  hu- 
man intellect  to  the  unravelling  of  the  august 
mysteries  of  God  was  zealously  punished  as  a 
blasphemy ;  the  only  authorized  channel  of 
knowledge  was  revelation.  The  rational  and 
systematic  questioning  of  nature  that  has  given 
us  modern  science  was  by  the  true  mystical  mind 
held  in  horror,  first  because  the  intelligence  is  a 

7* 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

human  and  therefore  corrupt  instrument,  and 
secondly"  because  nature  itself  is  an  illusion,  a 
pitfall  for  unwary  feet  that  falter  in  their  search 
for  heaven. 

An  asceticism  which  saw  in  the  physical  and 
intellectual  activities  of  the  natural  man  more 
evil  than  good,  could  hardly  be  expected  to  look 
more  leniently  on  his  emotional  life,  which  is, 
perhaps,  the  most  intensely  human  and  natural 
part  of  him,  and  of  which  the  organized  expres- 
sion is  art.  Ordinary  human  feelings,  exercised 
spontaneously  in  the  present  world,  and  not  as 
mere  offerings  to  the  beyond,  seemed  to  the 
ascetic  as  unworthy  of  a  God-fearing  man  as  sen- 
suous pleasures  and  intellectual  quests.  And 
especially  abhorrent  to  him  was  their  free  embod- 
iment in  art.  As  religion  is  the  expression  of 
man's  consciousness  of  the  supernatural,  so  art 
is  the  expression  of  his  delight  and  joy  in  the 
natural.  Its  work  is  to  build,  out  of  primitive 
sensations,  utterances  of  feeling  and  monuments 
of  beauty.  But  these  sensations  are  all  ulti- 
mately physical.  These  feelings  are  the  simple, 
instinctive  feelings  of  humanity,  and  this  beauty 
is  one  that  is  apprehended  by  no  metaphysical 
faculty,  but  by  ordinary  human  powers — by  the 

7* 


PALESTRINA      AND      MYSTICISM 

senses,  the  heart,  and  the  mind.  Art  is  the  most 
radically  and  inexorably  human  of  all  man's  in- 
terests. And  since  the  whole  bias  of  asceti- 
cism was  against  the  free  development  or  ex- 
pression of  merely  human  powers,  it  was  inevit- 
able that  mysticism,  in  which  the  ascetic  element 
is  so  considerable,  should  be  even  more  restric- 
tive than  helpful  in  its  influence  on  art.  While 
it  did  indeed  foster  the  purely  devout  and  adoring 
element  in  artistic  expression,  it  discouraged  that 
full  appeal  to  the  whole  man  by  which  alone  art 
attains  its  maturity. 

The  music  of  Palestrina's  age  is  probably  the 
most  consummate  expression  in  the  whole  his- 
tory of  art  of  this  peculiar  type  of  feeling,  with  all 
its  characteristic  qualities  and  limitations.  "  No 
other  form  of  chorus  music  has  existed,"  writes 
Mr.  Edward  Dickinson,*  "  so  objective  and  im- 
personal, so  free  from  the  stress  and  stir  of  pas- 
sion, so  plainly  reflecting  an  exalted,  spiritualized 
state  of  feeling.  This  music  is  singularly  adapted 
to  reenforce  the  impression  of  the  Catholic  mys- 
teries by  reason  of  its  technical  form  and  its  pe- 
culiar emotional  appeal.  .  .  .  It  is  as  far  as  pos- 
sible removed  from  profane  suggestion ;  in  its 

*  Op.  cit.,  p.  178. 

7$ 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

ineffable  calmness,  and  an  indescribable  tone  of 
chastened  exultation,  pure  from  every  trace  of 
struggle,  with  which  it  vibrates,  it  is  the  most 
adequate  emblem  of  that  eternal  repose  toward 
which  the  believer  yearns." 

It  was,  we  must  now  once  more  insist,  these 
peculiar  qualities  of  feeling  to  be  expressed  in 
mystical  art,  that  reacted  to  determine  the  pecu- 
liarities of  the  technique  in  which  they  had  to  be 
embodied,  just  as  a  man's  spirit  reacts  to  deter- 
mine the  nature  of  the  body  in  which  its  pur- 
poses have  to  be  wrought  out.  That "  ineffable 
calmness,"  that  "  chastened  exultation,"  of  the 
mystical  temper,  could  be  voiced  in  sound  only 
through  the  medium  of  clear,  ethereal  vocal 
tones,  combined  in  chords  prevailingly  conso- 
nant and  void  of  harshness.  Such  a  translucent 
fabric  of  tones  as  was  produced  by  human  voices, 
singing,  without  instrumental  accompaniment, 
the  purest  consonances,  was  best  fitted  to  merge 
with  the  vast,  cool  arch  of  the  cathedral,  with 
the  unlocalized  murmur  and  reverberation  that 
stirred  in  it,  and  with  the  somnolent  fumes  of 
incense,  to  form  a  background  apt  for  mystical 
contemplation.  And  then,  against  this  back- 
ground, the  phrases  of  aspiring  but  unimpas- 

74 


PALESTRINA      AND      MYSTICISM 

sioned  melody  which  one  by  one  sounded  above 
the  general  murmur,  traced,  as  it  were,  arabesques 
of  more  definite  human  feeling.  One  by  one 
they  rose  into  momentary  prominence,  to  hover 
above  the  other  voices  as  prayers  hover  among 
the  tranquil  thoughts  of  simple  and  devout 
minds.  There  was  about  them  a  celestial  clar- 
ity, an  unearthly  plangency  of  accent,  but  no 
turmoil  or  confusion,  no  hint  of  mortal  pain. 

Complete  impersonality  was  attained  by  the 
exclusion  of  dissonance  and  of  meter.  The  emo- 
tional function  of  dissonance  is  to  suggest,  by  its 
harshness,  and  by  its  sharp  contrastwith  the  con- 
sonances by  which  it  is  surrounded,  the  struggle 
and  the  fragmentariness  of  all  finite  existence. 
Like  a  cry  of  incompleteness  yearning  to  be 
completed,  it  is  eloquent  to  us  of  our  loneliness 
and  bitter  self-consciousness.  Meter  similarly 
insists  on  reminding  us  of  our  petty  human  selves 
by  stimulating  us  to  make  those  gestures  and 
motions  that  bring  into  full  activity  our  mus- 
cular expression,  with  all  its  mental  consequents. 
To  hear  a  strong  rhythm  is  to  be  irresistibly 
reminded  of  all  those  active  impulses  in  us  which 
underlie  our  sense  of  finite  personality.  It  was, 
then,  by  its  negative  peculiarities,  by  its  avoid- 

75 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

ance  of  all  harmonic  mordancy  and  definition, 
and  of  all  rhythmic  vigor,  that  Palestrina's  music 
secured  its  impersonality,  its  freedom  from  "pro- 
fane suggestion,"  and  from  "every  trace  of  strug- 
gle." Its  positive  and  negative  qualities  thus 
cooperated  so  efficiently  as  to  make  it  an  in- 
comparable exponent  of  the  mystical  mood.  It 
not  only  could  induce  that  rapt  attitude  of  wor- 
ship which  was  the  kernel  of  mysticism,  but  it 
also  skilfully  avoided  all  disturbing  hints  of  per- 
sonal, finite,  and  secular  activities.  It  comes  to 
our  modern  ears  like  a  voice  from  some  grey 
medizeval  cloister,  tremulous  with  a  divine  pas- 
sion, but  utterly  void  of  all  those  earthly  pas- 
sions in  which  the  sweet  is  subtly  mingled  with 
the  bitter,  and  human  pathos  is  more  audible 
than  heavenly  peace. 

Palestrina  marked  the  culmination  of  his 
school ;  the  pure  polyphonic  style  ended  with 
him.  Was  this  merely  because  his  younger  con- 
temporaries, overawed  by  his  perfect  skill,  dared 
not  enter  the  lists  in  rivalry  with  such  a  master  ? 
Or  was  it  rather  that  men's  minds  had  arrived 
at  the  period  of  a  fresh  insight,  and  that  the  time 
was  ripe  for  an  obliteration  of  hard  and  fast  dis- 
tinctions between  sacred  and  secular,  spiritual 

76 


PALESTRINA     AND      MYSTICISM 

and  carnal,  eternal  and  temporal,  and  for  a  pro- 
clamation of  the  native  dignity  and  worth  of 
man  himself,  in  the  fullness  of  his  sensuous,  in- 
tellectual, and  emotional  life  ? 


77 


CHAPTER    III 
THE    MODERN    SPIRIT 


CHAPTER     III 
THE     MODERN     SPIRIT 


H  E  need  of  mastering  life,  of  re- 
ducing its  multitudinous,  throng- 
ing details  to  some  sort  of  order, 
that  shall  lack  neither  the  unity 
which  alone  can  satisfy  the  mind, 
nor  the  variety  requisite  to  do  justice  to  the 
complexity  of  experience,  is  the  one  perennial 
need  of  humanity.  The  aim  of  all  the  chief 
human  undertakings  is  to  find  schemes  of  or- 
der :  physical  science  is  the  quest  of  order  in 
the  material  world  ;  morality  is  the  quest  of 
coordination  and  balance  between  many  indi- 
vidual wills  ;  religion  is  the  search  for  the  One 
Spirit  which  contains  and  fuses  together  all 
finite  souls ;  art  is  the  pursuit  of  that  organ- 
ization of  diverse  elements,  of  whatever  sort, 

81 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

in  one  sensible  whole,  in  which  we  perceive 
beauty.  But  since  experience  is  bewilderingly 
many-sided  and  complex,  one  scheme  after  an- 
other is  made  only  to  be  discarded  as  inadequate, 
and  progress  entails  the  constant  substitution  of 
more  inclusive  for  less  inclusive  syntheses.  Our 
most  catholic  formulas  are  provisional  and  tem- 
porary ;  "  opinions  are  but  stages  on  the  road 
to  truth." 

Such  a  word  as  "  modern  "  can  therefore  have 
but  a  relative  meaning.  What  is  modern  to- 
day will  be  archaic  a  hundred  years  hence.  Our 
contemporary  ideas  are  more  liberal  than  those 
of  our  grandfathers,  but  they  will  likely  appear 
as  the  rigid  superstitions  of  a  dark  age  to  our 
still  more  enlightened  descendants.  When  we 
speak  of  the  modern  spirit  we  say  nothing  in 
regard  to  the  future  ;  we  name  simply  the  atti- 
tude of  mind  which  characterizes  the  present  as 
contrasted  with  the  past.  That  new  vision  or 
intuition  or  instinct  of  truth  by  which  we  of  to- 
day reinterpret  in  more  liberal  wise  the  elements 
of  experience  either  interpreted  too  narrowly  or 
quite  ignored  by  the  earlier  generations — that  is 
the  "  modern  spirit." 

We  have  been  considering  at  some  length,  in 

8* 


THE     MODERN     SPIRIT 


the  foregoing  chapter,  the  characteristic  mysti- 
cal attitude  of  the  mediaeval  mind.  We  have 
seen  how  the  typical  thinkers  of  the  middle  age, 
aware  of  good  but  unable  to  identify  it  with  an 
actual  world  so  full  of  evil,  made  a  sharp  divi- 
sion, a  total  breach,  between  the  actual  and  the 
divine.  The  mystic  cut  the  Gordian  knot  of 
the  world-problem  by  rejecting  the  actual  alto- 
gether from  his  house  of  life.  His  scheme  had 
its  own  harmony,  unity,  rationality  ;  but  being 
built  upon  an  exclusion,  it  had  in  the  nature 
of  things  to  give  place  in  course  of  time  to  a 
scheme  less  disregardful  of  the  true  wealth  and 
reality  of  experience.  The  modern  mind  turned 
away  from  mysticism,  envisaged  the  world 
afresh,  and  reinterpreted  truth  in  terms  of 
idealism. 

Idealism  is,  in  essence,  a  belief  in  the  possi- 
bility of  attaining  the  divine  through  a  selective 
manipulation  of  the  actual.  In  the  respect  it 
pays  to  finite  life  lies  its  sharp  contrast  with  mys- 
ticism. It  has  gone  far  to  obliterate  the  breach 
between  the  actual  and  the  divine  which  the  mys- 
tic had  made  so  wide ;  it  has  tried  to  find  the 
eternal  in  the  temporal,  and  to  nourish  the  spirit 
by  guiding  and  developing,  rather  than  by  mor- 

«3 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

tifying,the  flesh.*  Mysticism  spurned  the  "this," 
the  "  here,"  the  "  now  ;  "  idealism,  on  the  con- 
trary, is  on  its  hither  side,  so  to  speak,  identical 
with  realism.  The  idealist  believes  in  the  im- 
mediate, and  loves  the  finite,  as  much  as  the 
crassest  realist.  He  finds  in  it  the  point  of  de- 
parture of  all  desirable  truths,  the  scaffolding  for 
all  mansions  of  the  spirit.  But  he  differs  from  the 
realist  in  that  he  does  not  stop  with  the  real,  but, 
using  it  as  material  for  idealism,  selects  from 
it  the  elements  of  his  heart's  desire.  The  actual 
world  is  to  him  a  sort  of  keyboard  on  which  he 
strikes  those  chords,  and  those  only,  which  he 
wishes  to  hear.  He  is,  indeed,  an  artist  in  life, 
and  his  method  is  the  true  artistic  method  of  se- 
lection and  synthesis.  But  on  the  other  hand, 
he  differs  even  more  radically  from  the  mystic, 
in  that  he  makes  the  very  materials  of  his  Celes- 
tial City  out  of  those  earthly,  momentary,  and 
finite  experiences  that  the  latter  rejects  as  dross. 
All  three  types  of  thought  find  themselves  con- 
fronted by  the  opposition  between  actual  facts 
and  spiritual  desires  which  is  so  characteristic  of 

*"Vice,"  says  Mr.  George  Bernard  Shaw  in  his  brilliant, 
paradoxical  way,  "  is  waste  of  life.  Poverty,  obedience,  and 
celibacy  are  the  canonical  vices." 


THE     MODERN     SPIRIT 


our  world :  the  mystic  repudiates  the  facts  ; 
the  realist  discredits  the  desires  ;  the  idealist 
sets  out  to  win,  by  a  selective  or  artistic  ma- 
nipulation of  the  facts,  the  satisfaction  of  the 
desires. 

Characteristic  of  idealism  is  therefore  its  re- 
spect for  the  actual,  in  all  its  phases.  It  respects, 
to  begin  with,  the  human  body.  The  tendency 
of  modern  thought  is  towards  a  wise  paganism 
in  physical  life,  towards  a  substitution  of  hygiene 
for  mortification,  of  moderation  for  abstinence, 
of  the  liberal  conception  of  "  mens  sana  in  cor- 
pore  sano "  for  the  monkish  ideal  of  a  soul 
gradually  burning  up  and  sloughing  off  its  tene- 
ment. Development  of  the  body  is  increasingly 
manifesting  its  true  relation  to  the  spiritual  en- 
terprises of  men — a  relation  that  repression  of  it 
only  obscured  and  distorted.  The  Hermit  of 
Carmel,  in  the  poem  of  that  name,*  spends  his 
days  in  a  painful,  endless,  and  futile  struggle  to 
eradicate  fleshly  lusts  ;  the  young  knight  knows 
another  sort  of  purity,  more  joyful  and  bounti- 
ful, the  purity  of  the  lover  who  remembers 
his  beloved.    Idealism,  like  that  happy  knight, 

*"The  Hermit  of  Carmel,  and  Other  Poems,"  by  George 
Santayana,  New  York,  1901. 


BEETHOVEN  AND  HIS  FORERUNNERS 

remembers  that  it  is  the  mission  and  destiny  of 
flesh  to  wait  on  spirit. 

Again,  idealism  respects  the  intellect.  The 
great  development  of  the  physical  sciences,  gen- 
erally considered  the  most  striking  fact  in  nine- 
teenth century  history,  is  the  necessary  result  of 
an  idealistic  faith  in  the  powers  of  human  ob- 
servation and  reason.  The  modern  mind,  be- 
lieving in  its  own  ability  to  interrogate  nature, 
has  done  so  with  tireless  energy,  recording  the 
answers  obtained  in  half  a  hundred  special  "  sci- 
ences," ranging  from  histology  to  psychology. 
It  has  applied  the  same  method  introspectively 
to  such  good  purpose  that  metaphysics,  in  the 
hands  of  Kant  and  his  successors,  has  radically 
altered  our  conception  of  how  we  know  truth, 
and  what  sort  of  truth  it  is  that  we  know.  Nor 
have  the  contributions  of  the  enfranchised  intel- 
lect stopped  with  philosophy ;  they  have  im- 
mensely deepened  and  vivified  religion.  The 
doctrine  of  evolution,  for  example,  a  product  of 
the  most  remarkable  keenness,  liberality,  and 
patience  in  intellectual  research,  has  substituted 
for  the  childish  anthropomorphic  doctrine  of 
creation  the  wondrously  vital  modern  concep- 
tion of  a  God  not  remote  and  detached,  but 

86 


THE     MODERN     SPIRIT 


nearer  than  thought  and  more  enveloping  than 
the  atmosphere,  incarnate  in  every  atom  and 
regnant  in  every  mind. 

The  emotional  or  spiritual  essence  in  man  is 
as  much  respected  by  idealism  as  his  body  and 
his  intellect.  Loyalty  to  actual  feelings  as  they 
well  up  spontaneously  in  the  heart,  rather  than 
mere  conformity  to  custom,  is  the  modern  atti- 
tude in  all  spheres  of  voluntary  life.  Personal 
conduct  is  a  truer  mirror  of  individual  feeling 
than  it  used  to  be.  What  a  contrast  the  stu- 
dent of  literature  observes  between  the  conven- 
tional worldliness  of  eighteenth-century  man- 
ners and  morals  and  the  intense  individualism  of 
the  early  nineteenth-century  poets  in  England 
and  of  our  own  transcendentalist  writers — an  in- 
dividualism which  was  the  logical  outcome  of  the 
idealist's  championship  of  human  emotion  in  and 
for  itself.  The  greatest  men  are  of  course  always 
ahead  of  their  age,  but  such  sturdy,  independent 
lives  as  Thoreau's,Whitman's,  Darwin's, George 
Eliot's,  Stevenson's,  would  have  created  even 
more  consternation  in  the  eighteenth  century 
than  they  did  in  the  nineteenth,  dimly  stirred  to 
freer  ideals.  The  same  regard  for  emotional  ver- 
ities that  has  so  deepened  individual  life  is  pro- 

87 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

ducing  a  revolution  in  all  social  relations.  They 
are  constantly  becoming  more  spontaneous  and 
genuine — less  matters  of  tradition.  Class  bound- 
aries are  being  obliterated,  a  man's  success  and 
position  coming  to  depend  less  on  family  and 
station,  more  on  the  man  himself.  Women's 
economic  progress,  combined  with  an  increasing 
sense  in  both  women  and  men  of  the  real  sacred- 
ness  and  responsibility  of  love  between  the  sexes, 
is  making  marriage,  in  many  ways  the  most  vital 
of  all  social  relations,  a  free  and  joyful  bond  be- 
tween equals,  rather  than  a  yoke  imposed  by 
egotism  and  endured  by  helplessness.  In  sum, 
the  democratic  ideal  is  substituting,  in  all  social 
relations,  the  genuine  inner  cohesion  for  the  ar- 
tificial mortar  and  cement  of  external  usage.  Fin- 
ally, it  is  the  same  regard  for  inner  realities,  so 
characteristic  of  idealism,  that  is  giving  to  men's 
religious  experience  a  new  profundity.  When 
once  the  heart  is  awakened,  it  needs  no  longer 
the  assurance  of  antique  books  that  God  exists, 
and  it  can  worship  him  no  longer  as  a  mere  form- 
ula, universal  because  featureless.  Intuition  sup- 
plants revelation,  and  men  enter  into  a  personal 
relation  with  the  God  they  had  before  conceived 
as  austere,  characterless,  and  remote.     Modern 

88 


THE     MODERN     SPIRIT 


nonconformity  is  an  indication  of  the  reality  of 
modern  religious  feeling. 

In  countless  ways  we  thus  discern  the  work- 
ing of  the  idealistic  impulse  in  our  contem- 
porary life.  Independence  in  personal  con- 
duct and  thought,  democracy  in  social  relations, 
nonconformity  in  religion,  stand  out  as  salient 
features  of  the  modern  world,  especially  when 
we  contrast  them  with  the  conventionality 
paternalism,  and  ecclesiasticism  of  the  mediae- 
val. 

The  foregoing  remarks,  together  with  the  re- 
flections they  will  suggest  to  the  reader,  may 
perhaps  suffice  to  show  that  idealism  has  met  at 
least  one  of  the  requirements  of  human  progress, 
by  filling  the  mind  with  a  vastly  richer. and  more 
various  mass  of  contents  than  mysticism  admit- 
ted. The  realities  it  takes  account  of  are  far 
less  pathetically  inadequate  to  match  the  ac- 
tual richness  of  experience  than  the  thin,  im- 
palpable, and  austere  conceptions  of  the  mys- 
tic. Compared  with  his,  the  world  of  the  ideal- 
ist is  a  breathing,  moving  world,  not  entirely 
void  of  the  infinite  tragedy  and  comedy  of  life 
itself.  Something  of  passion  and  pathos  it  has, 
and  it  is  held  in  shape  by  the  tough  fibres  of 

89 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

commonplace — for  even  the  trivial  is  not  ex- 
cluded. All  this  increase  of  complexity,  how- 
ever, would  be  quite  nugatory  were  a  principle 
of  unity  lacking.  The  complexity  must  be  built 
into  an  order  if  it  is  to  be  truly  a  synthesis,  sat- 
isfying to  the  mind  as  well  as  to  the  sense  of 
reality. 

It  is,  therefore,  a  fact  of  capital  importance, 
that  idealism  does  succeed  in  unifying,  as  well 
as  in  enriching,  our  conceptions  of  life.  It  sys- 
tematizes, at  the  same  time  that  it  broadens,  our 
views.  Much  as  it  insists  on  the  variety  of  ex- 
perience, even  more  does  it  assert  its  organic  un- 
ity. Indeed,  the  central  ideal  of  idealism,  its 
very  heart  of  hearts,  is  its  belief  in  the  whole- 
ness, the  organized  integrity,  of  the  universe. 
It  respects  the  body,  the  mind,  and  the  soul  of 
man  ;  but  even  more  it  respects  the  whole  man, 
in  just  balance  and  full  inward  cooperation  of 
functions.  Believing  man  to  be  an  organism,  it 
sets  supreme  store  by  his  full  or  organic  activity, 
and  deplores  undue  prominence  in  any  element 
of  his  life,  as  injuring  the  harmony  of  the  whole. 
Ardently  as  it  champions  individual  initiative,  it 
demonstrates,  through  philosophy,  that  the  very 
consciousness  of  the  individual  is  dependent  on 

90 


THE     MODERN     SPIRIT 


his  social  relations.*  It  recognizes  that  democ- 
racy can  exist  only  through  mutual  service,  and 
that  freedom  is  based  on  a  universal  sense  of  re- 
sponsibility. It  is  clearly  aware  that  a  personal 
relation  with  God  comes  only  to  him  who  is  willing 
to  obey  God,  not  in  a  spirit  of  passive  endur- 
ance, but  with  active  joy,  as  a  part  serving  the 
whole  in  which  it  has  its  being.  This  recogni- 
tion of  a  just  relation  to  the  whole  as  the  su- 
preme ideal  of  all  partial  existences  is  testified 
to  most  strikingly  by  our  very  vocabulary,  the 
natural  repository  of  our  beliefs.  The  word 
"  health,"  denoting  physical  well-being,  is  de- 
rived from  the  Anglo-Saxon  "hal,"  or  whole  ; 
"sanity,"  signifying  mental  well-being,  is  from 
the  Latin  word  for  the  same  idea,  "  sanus ;  "  and 
we  name  the  most  indispensable  of  moral  traits 
"integrity."  True  idealism  is  in  no  way  more 
certainly  to  be  distinguished  from  its  sentimen- 
tal counterfeits  than  by  its  constant  recognition 
that  the  preservation  of  the  wholeness,  as  well 
as  the  fullness,  of  man's  nature,  is  the  sine  qua 
non  of  human  welfare.  It  values  every  least  man- 
ifestation of  his  nature,  because  it  considers  each 

*  See  the  writings  of  Royce,  Baldwin,  and  other  writers  on 
the  social  genesis  of  consciousness* 

9* 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

one  sacred  ;  but  it  values  even  more  the  coord- 
ination and  harmony  of  all. 

Turning  from  the  consideration  of  idealism 
in  its  general  effect  on  modern  life  to  examine 
its  more  special  effect  upon  art,  we  recognize  at 
once  its  importance  as  an  aesthetic  force.  Art  is 
the  expression  of  man's  physical,  emotional,  and 
spiritual  life,  in  organized  fullness.  Wherever 
there  is  direct,  complete,  and  beautiful  express- 
ion of  what  seems  to  man  precious,  there  is 
art.  Wherever,  on  the  contrary,  there  is  sup- 
pression of  any  genuine  human  impulse,  in 
fancied  service  to  some  other,  as  in  the  case 
of  mediaeval  mysticism,  there  is  artistic  imma- 
turity or  arrest ;  and  wherever  there  is  an  exag- 
gerated development  of  any  one  impulse,  at  the 
expense  of  others  and  of  the  balance  or  symmetry 
of  all,  as  in  the  cases  of  modern  French  realistic 
literature  and  of  program  music,  for  example, 
there  is  artistic  decadence.  And  since  idealism 
insists  both  on  the  claims  of  all  legitimate  human 
impulses  to  recognition,  and  on  their  submission 
to  adjustment  in  the  interests  of  a  rounded  hu- 
man nature,  idealism  is  a  potent  stimulus  to  true 
art. 

All  this  is  amply  illustrated  in  that  great  de- 

9* 


THE     MODERN     SPIRIT 


velopment  of  art  underthe  spur  of  idealism  which 
we  name  the  Renaissance.  By  renaissance,  or 
rebirth,  is  meant  a  reawakening  of  the  human 
spirit  to  fuller  activity,  an  increased  recognition 
of  its  native  dignity  and  value  as  transcending 
all  artificial  sanctions  and  limits.  The  renais- 
sance period  was,  as  it  were,  the  adolescence  of 
humanity.  It  was  the  time  of  putting  away 
childish  things — passive  dependence  on  author- 
ity, superstition,  timorous  conventionality — and 
of  asserting  the  freedom  and  the  responsibilities 
of  men.  In  the  race,  as  in  the  individual,  it  was 
primarily  an  internal  event,  which  reached  ex- 
ternal expression  only  with  difficulty  and  after  a 
struggle.  The  youth  has  his  vague  internal  sense 
of  the  sacredness  of  his  convictions  long  before 
he  can  work  these  out  into  the  fabric  of  actual 
life.  A  long  fight  with  stubborn  customs,  with 
indifferent  circumstances,  must  take  place  before 
ideals  can  become  actualities.  Just  so,  the  ideal- 
ism of  the  race  had  to  meet  in  mortal  combat  a 
thousand  opposing  conditions,  had  to  conquer 
its  foes  and  acquire  its  ways  and  means,  before 
it  could  victoriously  express  itself  in  art.  In  other 
words,  feeling  had  to  enter  into  and  transform 
technique  in  order  that  the  art  might  voice  fully 

93 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS  FORERUNNERS 

the  impulse  that  animated  it.  When  we  speak 
of  the  renaissance,  therefore,  we  mean  no  nar- 
row, special  period  of  time,  precisely  dated,  like 
a  battle  or  a  treaty.  We  mean  a  new  spirit  of 
liberty  and  self-respect  in  the  human  mind,which 
expressed  itself  in  one  way  at  one  time,  in  an- 
other at  another,  according  to  the  facility  and 
promptitude  with  which  it  acquired  mastery  over 
these  ways.  The  expression  followed  the  effort 
only  after  a  long  interval,  and  different  expres- 
sions came  at  different  epochs,  far  apart  in  time. 
In  a  general  way  we  may  say  that  the  Renais- 
sance has  occupied  the  centuries  of  our  era  from 
the  fourteenth  to  the  one  in  which  we  live.  But 
each  art  has  also  had  its  special  period  of  develop- 
ment, reaching  in  its  own  good  time  the  goal  of 
its  own  particular  efforts,  under  the  conditions 
of  its  own  peculiar  medium. 

There  are  as  a  rule  several  successive  stages 
in  the  evolution  an  art  thus  undergoes  under  the 
spur  of  idealism.  First  there  is  the  vague  in- 
ner sense  of  a  new  weight  of  meaning  to  be  ex- 
pressed^ fresh  insight  or  intuition  that  demands 
utterance.  Men  awake  to  the  true  value  of 
those  inner  impressions  and  feelings  which  have 
so  long  been  smothered  under  conventions  and 

94 


THE     MODERN     SPIRIT 


the  worship  of  the  external.  They  know  not 
what  to  do  with  them,  how  to  voice  them  ;  but 
they  have  at  least  what  Stevenson  calls  "  that 
impotent  sense  of  his  own  value,  as  of  a  ship 
aground,  which  is  one  of  the  agonies  of  youth." 
This  may  be  called  the  period  of  the  fresh  in- 
sight. Then  comes  the  period  in  which  some 
sort  of  technical  medium  is  arduously  developed 
for  the  expression  of  the  new  impulse.  This 
period,  in  which  a  vast  work  must  be  done  by 
patient  experiment,  by  slow  adaptation,  without 
standards  and  without  models, is  necessarily  long 
and  laborious.  Often  the  prompting  insight  is 
almost  forgotten  in  the  toil,  and  the  initial  pas- 
sion seems  to  be  lost  in  dry  formalism  and  ped- 
antry. But  all  the  while  ways  and  means  are 
being  invented,  problems  solved,  and  traditions 
established,  even  as,  while  the  youth  toils  at 
desk  or  plough  or  counter,  forgetful,  for  the 
moment,  of  the  ideals  that  sent  him  thither, 
habits  are  being  formed,  mastery  is  being  ac- 
quired. The  period  of  technical  equipment,  then, 
if  it  be  properly  conducted,  leads  over  into  the 
period  of  achievement,  in  which  the  original  im- 
pulses are  adequately  expressed  by  means  of  the 
acquired  skill.     This  is  the  time  of  consumma- 

95 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

tion,  of  maturity,  of  balance  between  the  means 
and  the  ends  of  expression.  Such  was  the  age 
of  Pericles  in  Greek  sculpture,  the  age  of  Soph- 
ocles in  Greek  drama,  the  Elizabethan  age  in 
English  drama,  the  age  of  Leonardo  and  Michel- 
angelo in  Italian  painting,  the  age  of  Words- 
worth and  Keats  in  English  lyric  poetry.  Un- 
fortunately, the  period  of  maturity  is  generally 
followed  by  still  another  period,  in  which  the 
original  impulse  overshoots  its  mark  and  be- 
comes embodied  in  distorted,  grotesque,  and 
unbeautiful  forms.  So  weak  is  human  nature 
that  it  can  seldom  recognize  justly  its  own  value 
without  going  further,  without  precipitating  it- 
self into  the  pitfall  of  over-valuation,  pride,  and 
arrogant  self-assertion.  The  balance  of  all  the 
elements  of  art  to  which  idealism  aspires  is  then 
lost ;  special  elements  become  preponderant, 
special  effects  are  made  fetishes,  and  degenera- 
tion ensues.  Ripeness  leads  over  into  decay  • 
wholeness  or  sanity  is  lost,  and  partiality  paves 
the  way  to  disintegration. 

Mediaeval  painting,  for  example,  was  exceed- 
ingly rigid,  dry,  and  conventional.  The  effort 
of  the  ecclesiastical  painters  was  merely  to  sym- 
bolize religious  truths ;  they  were  like  chronic- 

96 


THE     MODERN     SPIRIT 


lers,  who  aim  at  narrating  facts,  rather  than  like 
ballad-writers  and  minstrels  who  are  interested 
also  in  the  beauty  of  their  language,  the  rich- 
ness, charm,  and  intrinsic  appeal  of  their  images 
and  phraseology.  But  by  imperceptible  degrees, 
led  on  by  the  natural  human  delight  in  shapeli- 
ness of  form  and  luxury  of  color,  and  learning 
to  make  the  skill  acquired  in  delineation  sub- 
serve the  higher  and  more  immediate  purposes 
of  art,  the  painters  of  the  Renaissance  gradually 
substituted  for  this  merely  symbolic  treatment 
a  broader  one,  in  which  human  beauty  was  as 
much  sought  as  religious  edification.  The  nude 
figure  was  lovingly  studied,  not  because  the  saints 
happened  to  be  men,  but  because  men  are  beau- 
tiful. Garments,  draperies,  fabrics  received  a 
new  attention,  in  the  interests,  not  of  historical 
accuracy,  but  of  the  intrinsic  pleasantness  of  tex- 
tures and  tints.  Postures  were  softened,  adjusted, 
made  less  angular  and  uncompromising  than  in 
the  almost  chart-like  early  frescoes.  Atmos- 
phere, chiaroscuro,  composition,  balance,  were 
deemed  worthy  of  the  efforts  of  painters  who 
considered  art  an  end  in  itself.  Eventually,  by 
the  great  pictures  of  the  Venetian,  Florentine, 
and  Neapolitan  masters,  all  the  human  faculties 

97 


BEETHOVEN     AND     HIS      FORERUNNERS 

were  called  into  harmonious  activity ;  the  eye 
was  delighted,  the  feelings  were  wooed  and  stim- 
ulated, the  imagination  was  touched  and  in- 
formed. "  Instead  of  riveting  the  fetters  of  ec- 
clesiastical authority,"  says  J.  A.  Symonds,* 
"  instead  of  enforcing  mysticism  and  asceticism, 
[art]  really  restored  to  humanity  the  sense  of 
its  own  dignity  and  beauty,  and  helped  to  prove 
the  untenability  of  the  mediaeval  standpoint;  for 
art  is  essentially  and  uncontrollably  free,  and,  what 
is  more,  is  free  precisely  in  that  realm  of  sensu- 
ous delightfulness  from  which  cloistral  religion 
turns  aside  to  seek  her  own  ecstatic  liberty  of 
contemplation."  Whether  painting,  which  thus 
by  insistence  on  the  intrinsic  values  of  its  me- 
dium attained  maturity,  then  carried  the  process 
too  far,  and  lost  roundness  and  balance  by  priz- 
ing mere  richness  of  color  above  all  else,  whether, 
in  a  word,  its  consummation  was  followed  by  a 
decadence,  is  a  question  too  large  for  discussion 
here.  But  it  is  beyond  doubt  that  painting  went 
through  the  first  three  phases  of  growth  pointed 
out  as  the  results  in  art  of  an  idealistic  impulse. 
In  the  same  way,  the  story  of  music  from  the 
beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century  up  to  Bee- 

*  "  The  Renaissance  in  Italy." 
98 


THE     MODERN      SPIRIT 


thoven,  or  throughout  that  section  of  its  history 
in  which  we  are  at  present  interested,  was  essen- 
tially the  story  of  a  renaissance,  or  novel  artistic 
development,  under  the  spur  of  idealism.  Look- 
ing at  it  from  the  vantage-point  now  reached, 
we  easily  trace  its  evolution  through  the  several 
regular  stages.  In  the  Florentine  reformers' 
abandonment  of  old  conventions  and  their  half- 
conscious  aspiration  towards  a  new  utterance, 
we  discern  the  first  stage  of  the  movement,  that 
of  the  novel  impulse ;  in  the  steadfast  and  ef- 
ficient delving  away  at  technical  methods,  at 
the  involutions  of  harmony,  counterpoint,  and 
form,  which  characterized  many  of  the  later 
composers  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  oc- 
cupied much  of  the  attention  of  even  such  men 
as  Haydn  and  Mozart,  we  trace  the  second 
stage,  that  of  equipment ;  and  in  the  glorious 
works  of  Beethoven,  who  set  the  keystone  in 
the  arch,  we  find  the  stage  of  consummation  and 
fulfilment.  Springing  from  the  foundation  of 
the  mystical  art  of  Palestrina  much  as  modern 
Italian  painting  sprang  from  the  foundation  of 
mediaeval  religious  delineation,  the  art  of  Pure 
Music  reached,  in  the  masterpieces  of  Bee- 
thoven, its  maturity. 

99 


BEETHOVEN      AND     HIS      FORERUNNERS 

Now,  as  we  saw  in  the  first  chapter,  the  ma- 
ture art  of  Pure  Music,  which  may  be  defined 
J  as  the  art  of  combining  pure  tones,  without 
words,  into  forms  expressive  of  our  funda- 
mental emotional  life,  and  congruous  with 
one  another,  or  beautiful,  necessarily  possesses 
three  kinds  of  value,  or  modes  of  effect,  to 
which  we  have  assigned  the  descriptive  labels 
"sensuous,"  "expressive,"  and  "aesthetic." 
Music  has  sensuous  value  in  proportion  to 
the  actual  physical  gratification  afforded  us  by 
the  tones  that  compose  it ;  it  has  expressive 
value  proportional  to  the  degree  in  which  it 
excites  in  us,  by  association  and  suggestion,  the 
fundamental  emotions  or  feelings ;  it  has  aes- 
thetic value  proportional  to  its  success  in  assim- 
ilating or  organizing  all  its  various  effects  into 
clear  unity,  thus  giving  us  that  sense  of  ordered 
richness  which  we  call  beauty.  If  it  be  true, 
then,  that  music,  during  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, under  the  spur  of  the  idealistic  or  modern 
spirit,  developed  from  a  primitive  into  a  mature 
art,  it  is  obvious  that  this  development  must 
have  rested  on  progress  made  in  all  three  kinds 
of  effect  ;  and  it  becomes  a  matter  of  much  in- 
terest to  trace  at  least  some  of  the  chief  phases 


THE     MODERN     SPIRIT 


of  this  three-fold  blossoming.  In  the  remain- 
ing portion  of  the  present  chapter,  accordingly, 
we  shall  study  the  most  striking  features  of  the 
progress  made  during  the  seventeenth  century 
in  sensuous  charm  and  in  expressive  power  ;and 
in  the  following  chapter  we  shall  examine  those 
principles  of  pure  music  which  underlie  its  high- 
est, most  indispensable  quality  of  all — that  of 
beauty,  or  final  unity  and  harmony  of  impres- 
sion. 

Remarkable,  in  the  first  place,  is  the  develop- 
ment the  mere  material  medium  of  music  under- 
went in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries. 
The  sensuous  fact  at  the  bottom  of  all  music 
being  the  tone,  the  sensuous  value  of  music 
depends  on  the  kind  of  tones  employed  and  on 
the  modes  of  their  combination,  just  as  the  sen- 
suous value  of  a  painting  depends  on  the  purity 
and  richness  of  the  pigments  used  and  on  the 
harmoniousness  of  their  arrangement.  So  long 
as  composers  dealt  either  with  choirs  of  human 
voices  alone,  or  with  a  few  crude  instruments 
like  the  organs  of  Bach's  predecessors,  the  vio- 
lins of  the  early  sixteenth  century,  and  the  spin- 
ets and  clavichords  of  the  sameperiod,  they  could 
get  little  variety  or  sonority  of  tonal  color.  But 


BEETHOVEN     AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

in  the  course  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries  was  made  a  wonderful  mechanical  ad- 
vance. The  violin,  the  most  important  of  all 
instruments,  not  only  because  of  its  inimitable 
beauty  and  expressiveness  of  tone  but  because 
it  is  the  nucleus  of  the  orchestra  and  of  the  string 
quartet,  was  brought,  by  the  Amatis,  Giuseppe 
Guarneri,  and  Antonio  Stradivari,  the  famous 
Cremonese  violin-makers  who  flourished  from 
about  1550  to  1737,  to  a  degree  of  perfection 
which  the  utmost  modern  ingenuity  has  been 
unable  to  exceed.  The  organ,  which  in  the 
thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries  was  so  cum-" 
bersome  that  each  key  had  to  be  struck  by  the 
entire  fist,  came  by  1600  to  something  like  its 
modern  condition,  as  may  be  seen  by  looking  at 
the  pieces  written  for  it  by  Frescobaldi  (1583- 
1644)  and  Buxtehude  (1 637-1707).  The  pro- 
totypes of  the  modern  piano  were  rather  slower 
to  develop.  At  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth 
century  the  clavichord  was  a  smallish  oblong 
box  without  legs,  placed  on  a  table  when  played; 
its  compass  was  somewhat  over  four  octaves ; 
one  set  of  strings  had  to  suffice  for  several  keys, 
each  key  being  provided  with  a  metal  tangent  or 
tongue  that  not  only  sounded  the  string,  but  at 


THE      MODERN      SPIRIT 


the  same  time  "  stopped  "  it  at  the  requisite  point 
for  producing  the  desired  tone.  The  "  damp- 
ing "  or  silencing  of  the  strings,  entrusted  in  the 
modern  piano  to  the  felt  dampers,  was  often 
done  by  the  left  hand  of  the  player.  The  spinet 
differed  from  the  clavichord  in  that  its  tones 
were  produced  by  a  hard  piece  of  quill  that 
plucked  the  string.  Both  instruments  gave  but 
weak,  short,  and  rather  characterless  sounds. 
But  all  through  the  period  we  are  considering 
they  were  being  experimented  upon  and  slowly 
improved  in  sonority^  variety,  and  color  of 
tone. 

But  even  after  they  are  provided  with  per- 
fected instruments,  men  are  still  much  restricted 
in  their  search  for  lovely  effects  of  tone  unless 
they  have  also  a  well-developed  tonal  technique, 
or  science  of  harmony.  The  tools  are  not 
enough  ;  the  use  of  them  must  also  be  known. 
As  we  have  seen,  however,  the  harmony  of  Pal- 
estrina  and  his  school  was  for  all  its  purity  some- 
what colorless  and  flat.  A  harmonic  fabric  made 
up  exclusively  of  consonant  chords  is  like  a  pic- 
ture painted  altogether  with  pure,  light  colors  ; 
it  is  wonderfully  bright  and  transparent,  but  its 
very  purity  makes  it  lack  force.  For  the  sake 
103 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

of  contrast  an  admixture  of  dissonances  is  re- 
quired, much  as  shadow  is  required  in  a  picture, 
or  harshness  and  irregularity  in  a  poem.  The 
entirely  sweet,  soft,  and  mellifluous  series  of 
chords  at  first  charms,  but  finally  cloys. 

One  of  the  important  tasks  of  seventeenth 
century  composers,  therefore,  was  to  find  out 
how  to  introduce  dissonances  in  such  a  way  as 
to  invigorate  without  disrupting  the  fabric.  Their 
harshness  must  not  be  obtruded,  but  it  must  be 
used.  The  Florentine  reformers  and  their  suc- 
cessors showed  great  skill  in  solving  the  prob- 
lem. They  learned  how  to  "prepare"  a  dis- 
sonance, that  is,  to  let  one  of  its  constituent  tones 
appear  in  a  consonance  and  then  hold  over  while 
other  voices  moved  to  dissonant  intervals;  they 
experimented  in  harsher  and  harsher  dissonances, 
admitting  them  only  with  great  circumspection, 
but  using  their  characteristic  qualities  with  strik- 
ing effect ;  and  they  established,  as  cadences, 
conventional  formulas  of  chords  containing  dis- 
sonant intervals,  which  became  by  mere  force  of 
repetition  acceptable  and  familiar.  In  this  way 
they  introduced  into  the  material  of  music  a  va- 
riety and  range  of  color  that  consonances  alone 
could  never  give.     "  Monteverde,"  says  Mr. 

104 


THE     MODERN     SPIRIT 


R.  A.  Streatfield,  "with  his  orchestra  of  thirty- 
nine  instruments — brass,  wood  and  strings  com- 
plete— his  rich  and  brilliant  harmony,  sound- 
ing so  strangely  beautiful  to  ears  accustomed 
only  to  the  severity  of  the  polyphonic  school, 
and  his  delicious  and  affecting  melodies,  some- 
times rising  almost  to  the  dignity  of  an  Aria, 
must  have  seemed  something  more  than  hu- 
man to  the  eager  Venetians  as  they  listened  for 
the  first  time  to  music  as  rich  in  color  as  the 
gleaming  marbles  of  the  Ca  d'Ora  or  the  radi- 
ant canvases  of  Titian  and  Giorgione."  If  we 
could  disabuse  our  minds  of  all  emotional  and 
aesthetic  perceptions  while  listening  to  modern 
music,  we  should  still  find  it  vastly  superior  to 
the  choral  art  of  the  middle  ages  in  its  purely 
sensuous  richness.  Sensuously  it  is  a  kaleido- 
scope of  shifting  effects,  now  harsh,  now  sweet, 
now  resonant  and  sibilant,  the  next  moment 
infinitely  wooing  and  grateful  ;  and  through  all 
ever  changing  its  outlines  and  melting  from 
color  to  color  like  the  iridescent  film  of  a  soap- 
bubble. 

But  of  course  we  cannot  disabuse  our  minds 
of  emotional  and  aesthetic  perceptions  ;  no  hu- 
man being  can  divest  himself  of  such  essential 

i°5 


BEETHOVEN      AND     HIS     FORERUNNERS 

parts  of  his  nature;  and  indeed  it  was  even  more 
in  obedience  to  higher  requirements  than  for 
the  sake  of  mere  sensuous  richness  that  the 
musicians  of  the  renaissance  period  so  radically 
remodelled  their  art.  The  essence  of  their  re- 
forms is  to  be  looked  for,  not  in  the  increase  of 
the  first  or  sensuous  value  of  music,  but  in  the 
enhancement  of  its  expressiveness,  and  of  its 
plastic  beauty. 

Expression,  in  general,  may  be  defined  as  the 
presentation  of  a  feeling  or  idea  by  means  of  an 
impression.  The  impression  may  act  either  di- 
rectly, calling  up  the  specific  idea  or  feeling  by 
virtue  of  a  long-established  association  between 
them,  or  more  generally,  by  simply  inducing  a 
state  of  mind  congruous  with  the  expression  de- 
sired, and  so  tending  to  generate  it.  The  former 
is  the  case  in  verbal  expression  (language),  where 
certain  definite  symbols,  words,  are  immemor- 
ially  coupled  in  our  minds  with  certain  ideas, 
conceptions,  or  feelings,  so  that  when  we  hear 
the  word  we  immediately  think  the  thing.  Mus- 
ical expression  differs  from  verbal  expression 
in  that  in  does  not  act  by  this  direct  arbitrary 
symbolism,  but  rather  by  the  more  subtle  gen- 
eral process  which  instills  a  feeling  by  setting  up 
1 06 


THE     MODERN     SPIRIT 


its  appropriate  atmosphere  or  milieu.  It  is  much 
vaguer  and  more  general,  and  for  that  very 
reason  far  more  potent.  The  word  "  love,"  for 
example,  arbitrarily  denotes  a  certain  idea,  not 
because  it  is  anything  like  the  idea,  but  because 
we  all  agree  that  that  word  is  to  mean  that 
thing.*  An  amorous  piece  of  music,  on  the 
contrary,  utters  no  definite  symbol ;  it  makes 
our  heart  beat  faster  and  deeper,  it  makes 
our  blood  circulate,  it  ravishes  our  senses  and 
our  minds,  until  whether  we  will  or  not  we 
know  what  it  says,  though  for  our  lives  we 
could  not  put  its  burden  into  words. 

It  is  by  this  direct  establishment  in  us  of  a  con- 
gruous or  favorable  state  of  mind  that  the  con- 
sonances of  the  mediaeval  music  express  relig- 
ious peace ;  and  it  is  no  otherwise  that  disso- 
nance, that  powerful  engine  of  the  modern  mu- 
sician, expresses  the  inward  division,  the  strug- 
gle and  sweet  torment,  of  idealistic  states  of 
feeling.  The  harshness,  disagreeable  in  itself 
but  essential  to  a  process  in  which  it  is  organ- 
ically linked  with  sweetness  and  rest,  arouses  by 

*In  the  case  of  onomatopoetic  words,  of  course,  the  gen- 
eral expression  is  added  to  the  specific  one — the  word  does  sound 
like  the  thing. 

107 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

an  association  of  ideas  a  sense  of  the  stern  beauty, 
the  tragic  splendor,  of  the  experience  of  the 
human  heart.  It  reproduces  in  the  sphere  of 
sound  that  same  series  of  states,  that  pain  merg- 
ing into  joy,  which  we  recognize  in  the  sphere 
of  our  consciousness  as  so  deeply  characteristic 
of  finite  life.  And  so  doing,  it  suggests  or 
shadows  forth  the  very  essence  of  our  nature, 
it  echoes  the  utterance  of  our  very  hearts.  It  is 
no  expurgated  reading  of  the  book  of  life  :  it  is 
the  full  text,  with  all  its  shuddering  horror  and 
all  its  celestial  joy. 

Probably  of  all  the  employers  of  dissonance 
for  the  purpose  of  emotional  expression,  in  the 
whole  course  of  the  seventeenth  century,  when 
the  aims  of  musicians  were  so  tentative  that  it 
required  courage  to  brave  convention,  the  most 
daring  was  Claudio  Monteverde.  "As  Monte- 
verde  most  frankly  of  all  musicians  of  his  time," 
writes  Sir  Hubert  Parry,*  "  regarded  music  as 
an  art  of  expression,  and  discords  as  the  most 
poignant  means  of  representing  human  feeding, 
he  very  soon  began  to  rouse  the  ire  of  those 
who  were  not  prepared  to  sacrifice  the  teaching 
of  centuries  and  their  own  feeling  of  what  really 

*««The  Oxford  History  of  Music,"  vol.  Ill,  p.  45. 
108 


THE     MODERN     SPIRIT 


was  artistic  without  protest.  That  he  should 
presume  to  write  such  simple  things  as  ninths 
and  sevenths  without  duly  sounding  them  first 
as  concordant  notes  *  was  so  completely  at  vari- 
ance with  the  whole  intention  of  their  art  that 
it  struck  them  with  consternation.  And  well  it 
might,  for  small  as  these  first  steps  were  they 
presaged  the  inevitable  end  of  the  placid  devo- 
tional music.  The  suddenness  of  the  poignancy 
which  unprepared  discords  conveyed  to  the 
mind  implied  a  quality  of  passionate  feeling 
which  musicians  had  never  hitherto  regarded  as 
within  the  legimate  scope  of  musical  art.  They 
had  never  hitherto  even  looked  through  the 
door  which  opened  upon  the  domains  of  hu- 
man passion.  Once  it  was  opened,  the  subjec- 
tive art  of  the  church  school,  and  the  submis- 
sive devotionalism  of  the  church  composers,  was 
bound  to  come  rapidly  to  an  end.  Men  tasted 
of  the  tree  of  knowledge,  and  the  paradise  of 
innocence  was  thenceforth  forbidden  them. 
Monteverde  was  the  man  who  first  tasted  and 
gave  his  fellow  men  to  eat  of  the  fruit ;  and  from 
the  accounts  given  of  the  effect  it  produced  upon 
them  they  ate  with  avidity  and  craved  for  more." 

♦"Preparation":  see  above,  page  104. 
109 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

Parry  gives  in  illustration  of  Monteverde's  style 
a  fragment  known  as  "Ariadne's  Lament,"  from 
the  opera  "Arianna,"  so  characteristic  that  it 
must  be  reprinted  here  : 


I 


Figure  IV.   "Ariadne's  Lament,"  by  Monteverdi. 


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In  studying  this  remarkable  fragment,  the 
reader  will  not  only  note  the  striking  unpre- 
pared dissonances  of  measures  2,  5,  11  and  13 
(the  latter  peculiarly  poignant),  but  if  he  will 
take  the  trouble  to  compare  the  effect  of  the 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

passage  as  a  whole  with  that  of  the  bit  of  Pal- 
estrina  given  in  Fig.  III.,  he  will  be  amazed  at 
the  increase  in  expressiveness,  especially  if  it  be 
remembered  that  "  Arianna "  was  produced 
probably  in  1607,  or  only  thirteen  years  after 
Palestrina's  death.  The  "  Lament  "  is  reported 
to  have  moved  everyone  who  heard  it  to  tears. 
Its  pathos  is  largely  due  to  the  skilful  way  in 
which  harsh  dissonances  are  made  to  alternate 
with  the  consonances  into  which  they  naturally 
and  inevitably  lead — a  process  which,  though 
not  directly  expressive  of  the  facts  of  human 
emotion,  in  the  sense  in  which  the  word  is  di- 
rectly symbolic  of  the  thing  which  usage  has 
coupled  with  it,  is  yet  indirectly  and  generally 
expressive,  in  that  it  reproduces  in  tones  a  series 
of  impressions  identical  with  the  series  of  feel- 
ings we  everywhere  experience  in  actual  life. 
Pain  linked  to  pleasure  by  an  organic  bond — 
that  is  the  universal  experience  of  everyone  who 
cherishes  an  ideal,  since  an  ideal  is  a  yearning 
for  something  which  now  is  not,  but  which  must 
eventually  come  to  be. 

The  melodic  character  of  the  "  Lament "  is 
as  impressive  as  its  harmonic  style.  In  its  short 
and  poignant  phrases  the  accent  of  passion  is 


THE      MODERN     SPIRIT 


unmistakably  heard.  And  this  is  true  not  only 
of  Monteverde's  work  as  a  whole,  but  of  that 
of  all  the  other  composers  of  the  Florentine 
"  new  music."  As  early  as  the  year  1 600  Jacopo 
Peri  wrote  an  opera  on  the  subject  of  Euridice, 
to  be  performed  at  the  wedding  of  Henry  IV 
of  France  to  Maria  Medici.  A  study  of  the 
passages  in  which  he  tried  to  express  the  grief 
of  Orpheus  at  the  loss  of  Euridice,  and  his  joy 
in  their  reunion,  brings  home  forcibly  to  the 
mind  the  advance  that  composers  had  even  at 
that  time  made  in  eloquence  of  expression. 
They  are  as  follows  : 

Figure  V.    Two  passages  from  Peri's  "Euridice." 


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"4 


THE     MODERN     SPIRIT 


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In  spite  of  the  primitiveness  of  the  style, 
there  is  considerable  force  and  even  definiteness 
of  expression  here.  As  Sir  Hubert  Parry  points 
out :  "  the  phrases  which  express  bereavement 
and  sorrow  are  tortuous,  irregular,  spasmodic — 
broken  with  catching  breath  and  wailing  accent; 
whereas  the  expression  of  joy  is  flowing,  easy 
and  continuous."  It  was  in  fact  the  aim  of  the 
inventors  of  the  type  of  operatic  recitative  here 
exemplified,  to  imitate,  while  idealizing,  the  ac- 
tual cadence  of  the  voice  in  emotional  speech. 
The  music  of  the  choral  epoch  had  carefully 
avoided  the  impression  of  passionate  feeling ; 

»5 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

the  new  music  as  persistently  sought  it.  The 
old  music  had  been  written  for  chorus,  which 
by  mere  virtue  of  numbers  is  quite  impersonal ; 
the  new  was  put  into  the  mouths  of  individuals. 
The  melodic  style  of  the  former  was  dignified, 
formal,  severe ;  that  of  the  latter  was  mobile, 
flexible,  constantly  adaptable  to  the  most  subtle 
changes  of  mood.  Here  again,  then,  we  see  the 
effect  of  the  idealistic  impulse  on  music.  Ideal- 
ism, insisting  on  the  worth  of  finite  experience, 
focusses  man's  attention  on  himself,  on  his  ac- 
tual feelings,  petty  as  well  as  universal,  base  and 
noble  alike,  and  makes  him,  whether  for  good 
or  evil,  vividly  self-conscious.  It  believes  in 
the  hopes  and  fears,  the  aspirations  and  disap- 
pointments, of  men  and  women  ;  believes  that 
in  human  beings,  in  spite  of  their  pathetic  weak- 
ness, there  is  a  unique  original  value,  not  to  be 
denied  without  crippling  that  august  whole  of 
which  they  are  the  minute  but  essential  parts. 
The  music  of  Peri,  Caccini,  and  Cavaliere,  and 
later  of  Monteverde,  succeeded  in  voicing,  at 
first  dimly  but  with  increasing  eloquence,  the 
primitive  human  emotions  that  mysticism  had 
disdained  as  worldly  ;  the  tendency  they  initi- 
ated gathered  force  apace,  and  passed  with  Ca- 

116 


THE      MODERN      SPIRIT 


valli  and  Lulli  into  France,  where  it  culminated 
in  the  work  of  Gluck.  The  great  contribution 
of  early  modern  opera  to  pure  music  was  the 
accent  of  genuine  and  various  human  feeling. 

A  third  tendency  toward  distinctively  mod- 
ern methods  that  was  steadily  gaining  ground 
throughout  this  period  was  the  tendency  toward 
metrical  and  rhythmic  vigor.  We  have  seen 
how  vigorous  meter,  in  music,  serves  to  express 
our  active  impulses,  how  it  grows  out  of  that 
ordered  gesticulation  we  name  dance.*  We 
have  seen  how  devoid  was  the  mediaeval  choral 
music  of  meter,*}*  and  indeed  how  inappropriate 
to  its  peculiar  genius  metrical  qualities  would 
have  been. J  The  moment  men's  attitude  to- 
ward their  own  ordinary  activities  changed,  how- 
ever, and  they  began  to  see  in  them  life  rather 
than  death,  their  expression  in  art  became  a  de- 
sideratum. And  it  is  a  fact  that  very  early  in 
the  sixteenth  century,  even  before  the  pure 
choral  music  had  reached  its  perfect  maturity, 
some  composers  had  begun  to  write  simple 
dances  for  unaccompanied  instruments,  gener- 
ally a  combination  of  strings  with  harpsichord. 

*See  Chap.  I,  p.  9.  -)-See  Chap.  II,  p.  12. 
J  See  Chap.  II,  p.  26. 

117 


BEETHOVEN     AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

For  a  long  while  these  efforts  remained  tenta- 
tive and  inchoate,  because  the  men  who  made 
them  were  neither  very  clearly  aware  what  they 
were  trying  to  do,  nor  acquainted  with  techni- 
cal means  for  doing  it.  But  the  scheme  of  treat- 
ing dances  as  the  basis  of  instrumental  move- 
ments the  chief  expression  of  which  was  that  of 
energy,  vitality,  the  more  active  and  efferves- 
cent emotions,  was  afterwards  elaborated  by 
more  trained  masters,  and  eventually  bore  fruit 
in  the  innumerable  suites  and  partitas,  or  bun- 
dles of  dances,  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and 
in  the  symphonic  minuet  and  scherzo. 

The  mere  fact  that  composers  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  paid  respectful  attention  to  the 
popular  minstrelsy,  which  had  been  treated  with 
such  scant  courtesy  by  ecclesiastical  masters, 
and  that  they  so  persistently  imitated  its  meth- 
ods, is  in  itself  strong  testimony  to  the  change 
of  attitude  that  was  taking  place.  The  songs 
and  dances  of  the  people  are  the  most  sponta- 
neous expressions  of  purely  personal  feeling  in 
the  entire  range  of  music.  They  were  upwell- 
ings  of  primitive  emotion,  as  instinctive  and 
unsophisticated  as  the  cries  and  gestures  from 
which   they  were  developed.     And  for  these 

at 


THE     MODERN     SPIRIT 


reasons  they  were  norms  of  the  proper  expres- 
sion of  naive  feeling  in  music — all  music,  so 
far  as  it  aims  to  express  personal  feeling  at  all, 
makes  use  of  the  melodic  phrases  derived  from 
the  cry,  and  of  the  dance-rhythms  derived  from 
the  gesture.  Consequently,  so  soon  as  musical 
artists  became  inspired  with  the  new  ideal  of 
personal  expression,  they  turned  to  the  popu- 
lar music  for  inspiration  and  methods. 

Thus  in  all  ways  the  tendency  of  music  in 
the  seventeenth  century  was  toward  a  fuller, 
more  varied,  and  more  poignant  emotional  ex- 
pressiveness. Men  were  willing  to  forego  with- 
out a  murmur  all  the  advantages  of  the  per- 
fected technique  of  the  earlier  choral  age,  and 
to  trust  themselves  on  the  pathless  sea  of  the 
New  Music,  because,  like  the  pilgrims  who  in 
the  same  century  left  European  civilization  be- 
hind them  to  seek  a  larger  if  more  difficult  life 
in  an  uncharted  country,  they  were  inspired  by 
a  love  of  the  human  spirit  in  its  fullness  and 
freedom.  All  arbitrary  limitations  and  denials 
of  it,  no  matter  how  hallowed  by  long  usage, 
were  to  them  not  religious,  but  sacrilegious. 
To  them,  as  to  Terence,  "  nothing  human  was 
alien  ";  and  they  might  have  cried,  with  Whit- 

"9 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

man,  to  every  human  trait,  however  trivial,  ig- 
noble, or  commonplace,  "  Not  till  the  sun  ex- 
cludes you  do  I  exclude  you." 

We  need  not  wonder  that  for  a  while  they 
paused  helpless  before  the  task  of  assimilating 
into  an  order  all  these  rich  materials  that  their 
humanism  had  evoked  out  of  chaos.  At  first 
they  were  more  discoverers  than  artists.  But 
genuine  progress,  as  we  say,  takes  place  only 
when  a  richer  variety  is  stamped  with  a  broader 
but  still  obvious  unity.  Art  is  not  merely  ex- 
pression, of  howsoever  varied  and  penetrative  a 
quality  ;  it  is  congruous,  harmonious  expres- 
sion, delighting  us  not  only  mediately  by 
what  it  says,  but  immediately  by  what  it  is.  In 
other  words,  it  rises  from  the  plane  of  interest 
to  the  plane  of  beauty,  and  becomes  genuine  art, 
only  by  the  possession  of  that  third  or  aesthetic 
value  which  depends  on  the  ultimate  unity  of  all 
the  various  factors  of  effect.  This  highest  value 
music  came,  in  the  course  of  time,  to  possess ; 
and  the  conquest  of  new  forms,  intrinsically 
beautiful,  in  which  all  the  novel  sensuous  and 
expressive  effects  could  be  embodied,  was  of  all 
the  achievements  of  the  seventeenth  century  the 
most  important. 


THE     MODERN      SPIRIT 


It  remains,  therefore,  to  study,  in  another 
chapter,  the  means  by  which  musicians  learned, 
after  long  trial  and  patient  experiment,  to  give 
shape  and  integral  life  to  all  this  motley  array 
of  feelings  and  effects  that  they  had  sum- 
moned out  of  the  depths  of  the  human  spirit. 
Their  task,  as  may  easily  be  believed,  was  an  ar- 
duous one.  We  need  not  follow  all  the  steps 
they  took  on  that  long  road.  It  will  suffice  to 
examine  some  of  the  more  important  stages  of 
their  progress,  to  get  before  our  minds  the 
general  artistic  principles  which  underlay  their 
practices,  and  to  see  what  point  they  had 
reached  by  the  time  Haydn,  the  first  great  fore- 
runner of  Beethoven,  came  to  take  his  share  in 
their  great  enterprise. 


CHAPTER     IV 
THE     PRINCIPLES     OF 
MUSIC 


PURE 


CHAPTER     IV 

THE  PRINCIPLESOF  PURE 

MUSIC 


* 


UST  as  success  in  the  intellectual 
and  moral  worlds  results  from 
power  to  shape  ideas  and  con- 
duct, to  make  syntheses  which 
combine  the  most  various  ele- 
ments in  unity,  so  artistic  success  results  from 
the  power  to  shape  into  a  single  organism  the 
various  elements  of  artistic  effect.  Art  may 
make  a  deep  appeal  to  us  by  the  richness  of  its 
sensuous  charm,  and  a  still  deeper  by  the  elo- 
quence of  its  emotional  expression;  the  deepest  of 
all  appeals  it  will  not  make,  we  have  asserted, 
unless,  by  marshalling  its  materials  into  an  obvi- 
ous order,  it  adds  to  its  sensuous  and  expres- 
sive charms  the  aesthetic  charm,  the  greatest  of 
all — beauty.  Art,  we  hinted,  was  beautiful  in 
the    proportion  of  its   unified  variety;  and  we 

I25 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

set  ourselves  to  see  what  methods  men  gradu- 
ally worked  out,  in  the  seventeenth  and  early- 
eighteenth  centuries,  by  which  the  wonderfully 
various  effects  of  their  new  music  could  be 
stamped  with  final  unity. 

In  the  fact  that  they  attain  beauty  through 
the  presentation  of  variety  in  unity,  all  the  arts 
are  alike;  yet  they  differ  much  in  the  way  they 
accomplish  this  end,  because  of  their  differing 
conditions.  Those  arts,  notably  sculpture, 
painting,  and  architecture,  which  adjust  their 
materials  in  space,  necessarily  use  methods 
quite  different  from  those  of  the  temporal  arts 
of  literature  and  music,  which,  existing  solely 
in  time,  have  no  spatial  relations  of  any  sort. 
The  spatial  arts,  presenting  all  their  elements 
simultaneously,  differentiate  and  at  the  same 
time  interlink  them  by  means  of  relative  posi- 
tion, size,  and  prominence.  In  a  well  designed 
figure  or  group  of  figures,  in  sculpture,  there  is 
always  a  balance  of  masses,  by  which  the  whole 
work,  however  diverse  in  detail,  is  knit  into 
unity.  The  centre  of  gravity  is  kept  well  in 
toward  the  centre  of  the  entire  mass;  all  the 
features  at  the  extreme  edges  lead  the  eye  back 
to  the  middle  to  rest;  there  is  centralization  of 

xz6 


THE      PRINCIPLES      OF     PURE    MUSIC 

effect,  balance,  poise.  In  a  good  picture,  all 
spots  of  high  light,  all  prominent  lines,  all 
striking  lineaments  of  every  sort,  are  similarly- 
contrived  to  equalize  the  tensions  of  the  eye, 
to  keep  it  in  that  state  of  attentive  rest,  or  an- 
chored discursiveness,  which  is  so  indescriba- 
bly delightful.  The  same  is  true  of  all  well- 
proportioned  buildings  and  other  architectural 
monuments.  Activity  of  eye  and  mind  are 
stimulated,  but  also  governed  and  directed. 
Howsoever  the  eye,  in  looking  at  any  good 
picture,  statue  or  piece  of  architecture,  may 
quest  and  rove,  it  is  constantly  brought,  by  the 
gentle  power  of  good  design,  back  to  the  cen- 
tre of  rest ;  the  sense  of  interesting  variety  is 
always  wedded  with  the  sense  of  ultimate  com- 
pleteness and  repose. 

In  the  temporal  arts  of  literature  and  music 
the  same  effect  is  gained  by  quite  different 
means.  Here  the  elements  are  not  presented 
simultaneously,  spread  out  for  the  attention  to 
wander  from  and  revert  to  at  will.  Each  is 
presented  but  for  a  moment,  after  which  it 
exists  only  in  the  memory.  Nevertheless  all 
literature  and  music  worthy  the  name  of  art  give 
us,  in  common  with  the  spatial  arts,  the  sense 

127 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

of  symmetrical  shape,  of  ordered  profusion. 
Though  we  are  aware  of  each  single  lineament 
but  for  an  instant,  after  which  it  is  supplanted 
by  the  next,  yet  we  know  that  all  combine  into 
just  as  complete  and  satisfying  a  scheme  as  that 
of  the  well-designed  statuary  group,  the  well- 
composed  picture,  or  the  well-proportioned 
building.  This  consciousness  of  form  or  design 
in  a  series  of  momentary  impressions,  on  which 
all  the  high  aesthetic  value  of  the  temporal  arts 
depends,  is  made  possible  to  us  by  our  mental 
powers  of  memory  and  recognition.  Litera- 
ture and  music  deal  with  memorable  units, 
which  are  repeated.  Familiarity  with  their 
methods  quickly  accustoms  us  to  expect  the 
repetitions;  whereupon  there  arises  a  succession 
of  expectations,  followed  by  their  fulfilments, 
by  which  the  so  fleeting  impressions  are  ar- 
ranged in  our  minds  in  a  fixed  and  satisfying 
order.  And  so  arises  the  sense  of  beauty  in 
the  contemplation  of  a  poem  or  a  piece  of 
music. 

In  poetry  two  different  modes  of  repetition 
are  utilized,  each  arousing  its  own  peculiar  ex- 
pectation, which  combines  with  its  fulfilment  to 
give  the  sense  of  order.     The  first  mode  is  that 

i*S 


THE     PRINCIPLES     OF     PURE      MUSIC 

of  metrical  repetition,  the  establishment  and 
reiteration  of  a  certain  scheme  of  accentuation 
of  syllables  practically  equal  in  duration.  In 
heroic  verse,  for  example,  the  scheme  is  a  suc- 
cession of  ten  syllables,  every  alternate  one 
accented,  and  beginning  with  an  unaccented. 
When  a  single  line  of  this  sort  is  heard,  it  forms 
a  pattern  in  the  mind,  and  arouses  an  expecta- 
tion of  another  of  the  same  sort.  The  fulfil- 
ment of  the  expectation  gives  rise  to  the  sense 
of  form.  In  rhymed  verse,  a  second  kind  of 
repetition  is  added  to  this  fundamental  metrical 
one,  namely,  the  repetition  of  the  terminal  sound 
of  the  line.  When  we  read  "  'Tis  not  enough 
no  harshness  gives  offence,"  the  obviously  regu- 
lar character  of  it  in  respect  of  accent  leads  us 
to  expect  very  confidently  another  line  of  the 
same  metrical  structure;  and  our  familiarity 
with  rhyme  disposes  us  to  think  it  highly- 
probable  that  the  new  line  will  moreover  end 
with  a  sound  similar  to  the  final  one  in  "offence;" 
so  that  when  the  line  comes — "  The  sound  must 
seem  an  echo  to  the  sense," — it  fulfils  both  of 
our  expectations,  and  we  get  a  double  sense 
of  design  in  it.  The  rhythm,  or  reiteration  of 
the   metrical   scheme,  is    supplemented  by  the 

1*9 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

rhyme,  or  repetition  of  the  terminal  sound. 
In  the  more  complex  forms  of  verse  the  two 
schemes  of  design  not  only  become  far  more 
subtle  in  their  single  application,  but  are  made 
to  cooperate  and  reenforce  each  other  in  all  sorts 
of  ingenious  ways.  The  couplet,  the  ordinary 
quatrain,  the  Omar  Khayyam  quatrain,  terza 
rima^  the  rondeau,  the  rondel,  the  triolet,  and 
all  the  stanza  forms,  are  simply  different 
schemes  of  combining  rhythm  and  rhyme,  the 
two  fundamental  formative  devices  of  all 
poetry. 

Like  poetry,  music  welds  its  elements  by 
means  of  two  modes  of  arousing  and  fulfilling 
our  expectations;  but  these,  though  they  are 
somewhat  analogous  to  poetic  rhythm  and 
rhyme,  are  so  much  less  close  to  our  ordinary 
experience  that  they  will  need  a  slightly  more 
detailed  explanation. 

^AlT  modern  music  is  divided  up  into  beats 
or  equal  time  divisions,  arranged  into  groups 
or  measures  by  some  regular  system  of  accen- 
tuation. The  accented  beats,  like  the  accented 
syllables  in  verse,  impress  the  mind  as  goals  of 
movement,  in  reference  to  which  the  light  beats 
are   felt  as    transitions  or   preparations.     The 

130 


THE      PRINCIPLES     OF     PURE     MUSIC 

regularity  of  the  alternation  of  transition  and 
goal  is  such  that  the  mind  quickly  forms  the 
habit  of  expecting  each  goal  beforehand,  and 
of  taking  a  proportionate  satisfaction  in  it  when 
it  arrives.  This  process  of  expectation  and 
fulfillment  links  the  successive  beats  together 
in  an  organism,  which  we  may  call  the  musical 
foot,  after  its  analogy  with  the  poetic  foot.*  So 
limited  is  the  mental  span  that  it  is  practically 
impossible  for  us  to  group  more  than  three 
beats  together  in  this  way  into  a  single  organ- 
ism; and  all  music  consequently  consists  of 
combinations  of  either  duple  feet  (one  light 
beat  followed  by  a  heavy),  or  triple  feet  (two 
lights  followed  by  a  heavy)  or  complex  arrange- 
ments of  both  sorts  together.  After  this  fun- 
damental grouping  of  the  time-elements  is 
made,  the  mind  instantly  proceeds  to  recom- 
bine  the  groups  into  larger  groups  called  phrases 
or  sections.  This  it  does  by  the  same  device 
of  accentuation,  either  actual  or  ideal.  It  con- 
ceives one  measure  or  foot  as  heavier  or  more 

*The  musical  foot  does  not  always  correspond  exactly  with 
the  '♦measure";  for  the  measure  begins  with  the  accent,  while 
the  foot  often  ends  or  culminates  with  t\  e  accent.  The  meas- 
ure is  marked  off  by  the  bar  lines,  but  the  foot  sometimes  spans 
the  bar  line. 

«3» 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

significant  than  another,  and  so  leaves  one  as  a 
transition,  to  approach  another  as  a  goal.  Thus 
groups  of  simple  elements  become  themselves 
the  compound  elements  of  a  larger  synthesis, 
and  the  entire  musical  fabric  gains  definiteness 
and  organization  through  the  process  of  aroused 
and  fulfilled  expectation.  Any  metrical  formu- 
la, like  that  of  a  bugle  call,  interrupted  at  any 
note  before  the  last,  gives  us  as  vivid  a  sense 
of  incompleteness  as  a  statue  with  arms  and 
legs  broken  off,  or  a  ruined  building,  or  a  mu- 
tilated picture. 

Metrical  structure  in  music  is  thus,  obviously 
enough,  fairly  analogous  with  metrical  structure 
in  verse,  with  its  grouping  of  syllables  into  feet, 
of  feet  into  verses,  and  of  verses  into  couplets 
or  stanzas.  When  we  pass  to  the  second  sort 
of  musical  structure,  however,  which  we  may 
call  tonal  or  harmonic  structure,  the  parallel 
analogy  with  poetic  rhyme  is  much  less  satis- 
factory. It  is  true  that  harmony  and  rhyme 
both  act  by  presenting  similar  sounds  at  given 
points  in  the  series  of  impressions;  but  har- 
mony is  a  far  more  subtle,  various,  and  potent 
organizing  agent  than  rhyme.  Harmony  de- 
pends on  the  fact  that  the  tones,  or  pitch 
13a 


THE     PRINCIPLES     OF     PURE     MUSIC 

elements,  used  in  music,  can  be  distinguished 
into  unrestful  and  restful,  or  into  transitional 
and  final,  just  as  the  metrical  or  time-elements 
are.  In  primitive  music,  in  which  but  one  tone 
sounded  at  a  time,  the  matter  was  almost  ab- 
surdly simple:  high  notes  were  unrestful, 
because  they  involved  muscular  tension;*  low 
notes  were  restful,  because  they  meant  relaxa- 
tion of  vocal  effort.  Consequently,  a  descent 
of  the  voice  meant  a  transition  to  a  goal,  and 
songs  were  divided  off  into  sections  by  succes- 
sive falls  of  the  voice  or  cadences.  The  word 
"  cadence,"  so  important  in  musical  terminology, 
preserves  in  itself  the  record  of  this  phase  of 
musical  growth ;  from  the  Latin  cado,  to  fall,  it 
means  primarily  a  sinking  or  lapsing,  and 
hence,  in  general,  a  coming  to  rest. 

As  soon  as  two  or  more  melodies  were  sounded 
together,  however,  the  sense  of  rest  following  ac- 
tivity, the  universal  generator  of  design  in  a  tem- 
poral series  of  impressions,  could  be  produced  in 
a  far  more  subtle  way.  It  could  be  produced  by 
making  the  melodies  pass  through  an  inhar- 
monious or  dissonant  chord  or  series  of  chords, 
to  a  harmonious  one.     As  soon  as  dissonance 

*  It  must  be  remembered  that  all  primitive  music  was  vocal. 
»33 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS  FORERUNNERS 

came  into  general  use,  in  other  words,  the 
sense  of  unrest,  of  impulsion  toward  something 
else,  of  progressive  movement,  that  it  imparted 
to  music,  was  so  potent  that  cadences  could  be 
made  upward  as  well  as  downward;  whenever 
dissonance  resolved  into  consonance  the  effect 
of  cadence  ensued.  And  as  dissonances  are  of 
all  conceivable  degrees  of  harshness,  cadences 
could  be  made  of  any  desired  degree  of  finality. 
Moreover,  as  the  tonal  material  of  music  grew 
more  and  more  systematized,  the  feeling  of  key 
sprang  up  in  men's  minds;  all  music  was  felt  to 
be  in  a  certain  key,  that  is,  grouped  about  a 
certain  tone,  the  centre  and  goal  of  all  the 
others;  and  then  cadences  came  to  have  even 
greater  variety  in  the  degree  of  finality  they 
seemed  to  assert,  dependent  not  only  on  the 
strength  of  the  dissonances  they  followed,  but 
also  on  the  remoteness  or  nearness  of  their  final 
chord  to  the  keynote  of  the  piece.  All  this 
meant  greater  and  greater  resources  for  build- 
ing up  music  into  complex  and  yet  perfectly 
definite  organisms;  and  as  harmonic  form  con- 
stantly interacted  more  and  more  subtly  with 
metrical  form  the  capacities  of  design  became 
practically  infinite. 

»34 


THE      PRINCIPLES     OF     PURE     MUSIC 

Lest  the  reader  get  lost  in  the  maze  of  tech- 
nical details,  however,  it  will  be  well  now  to 
revert  to  the  general  principles  underlying  all 
these  musical  phenomena,  and  to  sum  up, 
before  passing  on,  the  essential  points  we  have 
been  trying  to  come  at.  Those  arts  which, 
like  poetry  and  music,  present  their  matter  to 
us  in  a  temporal  series,  depend  for  that  organi- 
zation of  variety  into  unity  which  is  beauty 
(and  the  sine  qua  non  of  all  art)  on  the  arousal 
in  us  of  expectations,  which  are  presently  ful- 
filled. By  first  leading  us  to  expect  something, 
and  then  presenting  it,  they  enable  us  to  group 
our  impressions,  to  feel  that  they  are  interre- 
lated and  mutually  dependent,  to  get,  in  short, 
the  sense  of  design  or  order.  Music  effects 
this  by  means  of  metrical  and  harmonic  form, 
which  act  is  the  same  way  so  far  as  they  pre- 
sent unrestful,  followed  by  restful,  impressions, 
though  in  different  ways  so  far  as  the  technical 
basis  of  these  impressions  is  concerned.  Psycho- 
logically speaking,  metrical  and  harmonic  form 
cooperate  to  give  music  definite  structure  in 
our  minds;  to  reclaim  it  from  the  condition  of  a 
mere  sensuous  or  emotional  stimulus,  and  engraft 
upon  it  the  final  and  supreme  beauty  of  order. 

*3S 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

All  absolute  or  pure  music  depends  for  its 
structure  on  these  two  great  formative  agents 
of  metrical  and  harmonic  design;  but  the  mode 
of  their  application  progressed  from  simplicity 
to  comparative  complexity  as  music  evolved 
from  the  choral  song  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
out  of  which  it  grew,  to  the  modern  sonata  and 
symphony.  It  would  be  quite  impossible  to 
examine  in  detail,  here,  all  the  stages  of  that 
progress.  Our  effort  must  be  rather  to  define 
three  well-marked  phases  of  the  many-sided 
growth  in  general  and  summary  terms,  taking 
for  granted,  meanwhile,  the  minor  variations 
and  modifications  which  elude  our  somewhat 
rough  analysis.  These  three  phases  have  in 
common  certain  essential  traits.  In  each  we 
see  music  making  up  its  elementary  units  of 
effect,  out  of  unorganized  tones,  by  the  aid  of 
metrical  and  harmonic  form;  in  each  we  see  it 
combining  these  units  into  complex  designs  by 
means  of  the  principles  of  variated  repetition  of 
them.  The  difference  between  the  phases  is 
that  in  the  later  ones  the  units  are  larger  and 
more  definite,  and  are  combined  into  broader, 
more  complex  organisms. 

The  first  phase  is  that  in  which  short  musi- 
.36 


THE     PRINCIPLES     OF     PURE      MUSIC 

cal  "  subjects,"  called  motifs,  are  made  the 
elements  of  contrapuntal  forms  such  as  the 
canon,  free  prelude,  invention,  madrigal,  and 
fugue.  This  phase,  in  which  pure  music 
makes  its  first  appearance,  emerging  from  the 
choral  music  which  needed  no  musical  princi- 
ples of  design  because  it  took  its  shape  and 
meaning  from  words,  grew  naturally  out  of  the 
choral  music  which  preceded  it.  Imagine  any 
bit  of  melody  springing  into  existence  in  con- 
nection with  a  verbal  phrase  or  sentence  ;  then 
fancy  it  sounded  without  the  words  which  gave  it 
reason  for  being:  it  is  easy  to  see  that  the  only 
way  it  can  now  be  given  significance  is  by  being 
made  the  subject  of  a  musical  design,  that  is,  by 
being  repeated,  either  literally  or  in  modified 
form.  Even  the  most  primitive  savages  have 
always  felt  this.  In  Sir  Hubert  Parry's  book 
on '"  The  Evolution  of  the  Art  of  Music  "  we 
find  many  examples  of  formulas  of  notes  used 
by  savages  as  motifs,  and  developed  simply  by 
endless  repetition.  Such  formulas  as  the  fol- 
lowing, for  example,  become,  by  mere  repetition, 
true  music  of  a  primitive  type : 


137 


BEETHOVEN      AND     HIS     FORERUNNERS 


Figure  VI.  Monr. 


P 


^=£$e 


-tr-' 


:«■: 


From  Parry's  "Evolution  of  the  Art  of  Music,"  p.  49. 


The  earliest  attempts  at  pure  music,  though 
infinitely  more  advanced  than  these  childish 
forms,  were,  like  them,  built  up  out  of  short 
motifs,  of  anywhere  from  two  to  a  dozen  tones, 
given  definiteness  by  fixed  metrical  and  har- 
monic relationships,  and  developed  by  means 
of  repetition.  All  through  the  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  centuries  such  contrapuntal  forms 
were  being  developed  to  a  high  pitch  of  per- 
fection, and  they  reached  their  culmination  in 
the  great  fugues  of  J.  S.  Bach  (i 685-1750). 
Let  us,  then,  instead  of  poring  painfully  over 
the  obscure  steps  by  which  this  vantage-point 
in  art  was  reached,  make  a  brief  analysis  of 
the  consummated  fugue-form,  as  it  was  treated 
by  this  supreme  master. 

The  fugue  of  Bach,  as  it  is  represented,  for 
example,  in  the  forty-eight  fugues  of  his  "  Well- 

138 


THE      PRINCIPLES     OF     PURE     MUSIC 

Tempered  Clavichord,"  is  a  contrapuntal  or 
polyphonic  form  ;  that  is,  it  is  made  up  of  from 
two  to  five  voices  or  parts,  progressing  with 
complete  melodic  independence  of  one  another, 
yet  in  entire  harmony.  It  is  based  on,  or  pro- 
ceeds out  of,  a  short  motif  or  subject,  often  but 
a  measure  or  two  in  length,  but  subjected  to 
the  most  ingenious,  varied,  and  exhaustive 
manipulation.  It  has  certain  structural  divi- 
sions, and  always  ends  in  the  key  in  which  it 
began;  yet  its  form  does  not,  strictly  speaking, 
depend  on  its  sectional  structure,  as  is  the  case 
with  the  song,  dance,  and  sonata  forms,  but 
rather  on  the  logical  exploitation  of  the  motif. 
The  motif,  in  a  word,  is  the  primary  fact  of 
the  fugue,  the  seed  from  which  is  germinated  all 
the  luxuriant  florescent  life  of  the  subsequent 
music. 

Since  the  motif  is  the  animating  force  of 
the  entire  fugue,  it  is  obvious  that  upon  its 
pointedness,  variety,  and  interest  will  depend 
the  vitality  of  the  composition  as  a  whole. 
Bach  accordingly  spares  no  pains  in  the  con- 
struction of  his  motifs.  Much  as  they  differ 
in  length,  expression,  and  style,  all  are  brimful 
of    interest.     Each    embodies    some    striking 

139 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 


musical  idea ;  some  persuasive  or  emphatic 
rhythm,  some  definite  tonal  design  which  either 
by  its  oddness  or  by  its  utter  naturalness  and 
inevitability  lays  firm  hold  upon  the  attention 
at  once,  and  coerces  interest  whenever  it  recurs. 
Here  are  a  few  motifs  from  the  "  Well-Tem- 
pered Clavichord": 

Fig.  VII.    Lento.  


& 


H£ 


m 


X 


±=t 


£=*: 


t=t 


Andante  con  moto 


Moderato  e  maestoso. 


pk 


HE 


^su 


Allegro. 


pjpggjjgpBggl 


Andante  maestoso. 


P 


®s 


ftfrg 


5=? 


w 


•&• 


fcfc 


£*3= 


140 


THE     PRINCIPLES     OF     PURE     MUSIC 

The  variety  is  wonderful,  even  in  these  five 
subjects ;  and  it  will  be  seen  at  once  how  pro- 
vocative of  musical  thought  they  are,  like  con- 
densed aphorisms,  packed  with  suggestions  that 
send  the  mind  questing  through  endless  vistas 
of  imagination. 

As  for  the  further  treatment  of  the  fugal 
motif,  the  actual  formal  rules,  despite  the  awe 
they  have  immemorially  aroused  in  the  popu- 
lar mind,  are  few  and  simple.  After  the  first 
announcement  of  the  subject  by  a  single  voice, 
it  is  answered  by  a  second  voice,  at  an  interval 
of  a  fifth  above  ;  *  then  again  stated  by  a  third 
voice,  and  answered  by  a  fourth.  This  pro- 
cess goes  on  until  each  voice  has  had  a  chance 
to  enunciate  the  motif,  after  which  the  conver- 
sation goes  on  more  freely ;  the  subject  is  an- 
nounced in  divers  keys,  by  divers  voices;  epi- 
sodes, in  a  congruous  style,  vary  the  monotony; 
at   last    the    subject    is    emphatically    asserted 

*The  reason  of  the  "answer  at  the  fifth"  is  this:  the  tonic 
and  dominant  being  the  two  tonal  centres  of  the  key,  about 
which  all  its  sounds  are  grouped,  it  is  natural  that  they  should 
be  treated  as  complementary  to  each  other  and  made  the  bases 
of  contrast  effects.  After  the  subject  is  announced  in  the  tonic, 
then,  it  is  answered  in  the  dominant,  or  a  fifth  above  (or  a  fourth 
below,  which  amounts  to  the  same  thing).     See  Figure  VIII. 

141 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

by  the  various  voices  in  quick  succession 
("  stretto ")  and  with  some  little  display  or 
grandiloquence  the  piece  comes  to  an  end. 
But  simple  as  is  this  scheme,  it  gives  the  com- 
poser ample  opportunity  to  develop  his  theme 
with  the  utmost  ingenuity,  to  subject  it  to  the 
most  surprising  metamorphoses,  and  to  place 
it  in  ever  new  lights  and  postures. 

Practically  all  the  possibilities  of  developing 
a  motif  were  exploited  by  Bach  in  his  marvel- 
ous fugues.  The  development  of  the  motif 
means,  in  the  most  general  terms,  the  repeti- 


Figure  Vlll.    Allegro  moderate. 

is 


3£ 


>-»-#-# 


-* — r 


w*r^- 


k 


Moderate  maestoso. 


m 


so: 


2C 


'&     o 


w 


ZELjSM 


i 


» 


A 


*? 


14a 


THE     PRINCIPLES     OF    PURE     MUSIC 

tion  of  it  in  forms  sufficiently  like  the  original 
one  to  be  recognizable,  yet  sufficiently  unlike 
it  to  be  novel  and  interesting,  to  exhibit  it,  as 
has  just  been  said,  in  "  new  lights  and  pos- 
tures." Now,  since  the  identity  of  the  motif 
depends  on  the  fixed  metrical  and  harmonic 
relations  of  its  constituent  tones,  it  is  obvious 
that  variation  of  it  will  have  to  consist  in 
slight  alterations  of  these  metrical  or  of  these 
harmonic  relations,  or  of  both,  managed  with 
such  skill  that  they  do  in  effect  vary,  without 
disintegrating,  the  motif.  Our  next  task,  then, 
will  be  to  describe  the  chief  means,  both  metri- 
cal and  harmonic,  by  which  the  motif,  in  the 
hands  of  Bach  and  of  all  his  successors,  is 
modified  without  being  destroyed. 

Mere  repetition,  of  course,  is  not,  strictly 
speaking,  development,  however  efficient  it  may 
be  as  a  means  of  building  up  musical  structures. 
With  the  repetition  of  the  motif  at  a  different 
place  in  the  scale,  however,  such  as  is  used  in 
the  "  answer,"  we  have  a  true  development, 
though  an  elementary  one.  Here  all  the  met- 
rical and  harmonic  relations  of  the  motif  ar» 
kept  intact,  at  the  same  time  that  the  bodily 
shifting  of  it  in  the  scale  throws  upon  it,  so  to 

*43 


BEETHOVEN  AND  HIS  FORERUNNERS 

speak,  a  new  light.     This  will  be  felt  at  once 
by  any  musical  person  who  will   play  over  at- 
tentively the  two  subjects  and  answers  of  Fig- 
ure VIII.     A    much    more  radical  change  is 
effected  when  the  motif  is  changed  from  major 
to  minor,  or  vice  versa,  or  presented  in  some 
key  other  than  the  dominant  and  more  remote, 
or  presented   with    new  harmonization.     Still, 
even  in  such  cases,  the  metrical  and  fundamental 
harmonic  form  of  the  subject  remains  unaltered. 
In  the  device  called  "  inversion,"  much  used 
by   Bach,  we  have  an  essential   change.     The 
metrical  form    of  the    subject,  remaining   un- 
changed, ensures  recognizability,  but   the   har- 
monic   relations,  while    remaining   identical    in 
respect  of  size,  are  exactly  reversed  in  respect 
of  direction ;    in    other    words,  the    subject   is 
turned  upside  down.     A  few  examples  will  ex- 
plain this  better  than  many  words. 

Figure  IX.    Examples  of  Inversion. 
In  Fugue  VHI,  Book  I,  W.-T.C, 


¥-•- 


*£ 


2=2 


becomes 


fei-^L^^^ 


*44 


THE     PRINCIPLES     OF     PURE      MUSIC 


In  Fugue  XX,  Book  I,  W.-T.C 


becomes 

3*£ 


Ie^I 


g      ^ ! — fad     1 


£S 


it 


Zt=ff 


Many  other  examples  might  be  given,  for 
Bach  is  endlessly  ingenious  in  his  use  of  inver- 
sion, and  all  the  composers  who  followed  him 
have  used  it.  Its  effect,  as  will  be  seen  from 
the  examples,  is  most  stimulating;  the  mind 
easily  perceives  the  likeness  to  the  original  sub- 
ject, since  the  rhythm  is  retained  intact;  yet  the 
turning  upside  down  of  all  the  pitch  relations 
produces  most  unexpected  and  interesting  fea- 
tures. 

So  much  for  modifications  dependent  on 
altered  tonal  relationships.  Those  produced 
by  metrical  alterations  are  if  anything  even 
more  serviceable  to  the  composer.  The  sim- 
plest metrical  change  possible  is  produced  by 
increasing  or  decreasing  the  actual  duration  of 
all  the  tones  in  the  motif,  while  retaining  jeal- 
ously their  proportionate  duration.     Thus  the 

145 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

identity  of  the  motif  is  not  tampered  with,  but 
it  is  made  to  bear  a  new  relation  to  its  musical 
context.  This  device  is  named  augmentation 
or  diminution,  according  as  the  time-values  of 
the  motif  are  augmented  or  diminished. 


Figure  X.    Examples  of  Augmentation  and  Diminution. 
In  Fugue  VIII,  Book  I,  W.-T.C, 


m 


4- 


4- 


WFI 


*=z 


& 


^Mzfi 


■9 


becomes  by  augmentation, 

fvrrff.frf 


'tMinJ1- 


-fSL.    .#--#. 


m 


In  Fugue  II,  Book  II,  W.-T.C, 


is  treated  as  follows: 

(Motif  in  original  form.) 


guua 


^  r  r  f    r    r    cj  'c 


w    (Motif  in  augmentation.) 


146 


THE     PRINCIPLES     OF     PURE     MUSIC 


In  Fugue  IX,  Book  U,  W.-T.C, 


rfJS 


becomes  by  diminution, 


*£BE 


:£ 


-I — I- 


fe£ 


*fjF    f- 


— e <S* i — «Hf 

7 — n^Ty 


^rzctc. 


It  will  be  well  worth  the  reader's  while  to  play 
through  the  entire  fugues  cited,  noting  the  mar- 
velous skill  and  subtlety  with  which  Bach 
weaves  his  fabric. 

In  augmentation  and  diminution  the  original 
accents  of  the  motif  are  for  the  most  part  re- 
tained— it  is  only  the  durations  that  are  altered. 
More  transformative  still,  therefore,  are  those 
devices  which  actually  shift  the  accents  of  the 
motif,  its  most  salient  and  identifying  features. 
The  most  important  of  these,  which  we  may  call 
"  shifted  rhythm,"  is  seldom  found  in  Bach; 
for  its  frequent  and  exhaustive  application  we 
must  look  to  Mozart,  Beethoven,  and  Brahms. 
As  its  name  indicates,  "  shifted  rhythm  "  con- 
sists in  bodily  shifting  or  transposing  the  motif 
in  such  a  manner  that  its  heavy  beats  become 
light,  and   its  light  ones  heavy.     In  order  to 

147 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 


complete  our  account  of  the  chief  means  of  ex- 
ploiting motifs,  a  few  examples  of  shifted  rhythm 
may  find  place  here,  even  though  they  are  not 
taken  from  Bach. 

Figure  XI.    Examples  of  Shifted  Rhythm. 

From  the  Minuet  of  Mozart's  String  Quartet  in  C-major. 


r-g-.-,  rJiJm 


ttt-fcn  j  i  Uf4 


^=ff 


lr 


•  *-l 


From  the  first  movement  of  Beethoven's  Eighth  Symphony. 


From  the  first  movement  of  Brahms' s  Second  Symphony. 


*Q 


^~ 


*S: 


W=± 


r^=* 


t^- 


*f$   T' 


*r+ 


pr 


X- 


r: 


r 


-L>i=^ 


^F 


i48 


THE     PRINCIPLES     OF     PURE     MUSIC 

The  foregoing  discussion  and  examples  will 
serve  to  give  a  slight  idea  of  the  wonderfully 
varied  means  of  manipulating  short  motifs  or 
musical  subjects  which  composers  derive  from 
the  peculiarities  of  metrical  and  harmonic  or- 
ganization. These  means  were  utilized  by  Bach 
in  the  fugue  with  tireless  industry  and  inex- 
haustible imagination.  The  fugue  became  in 
his  hands  the  most  perfect  in  its  orderly  com- 
plexity of  all  the  forms  of  pure  music;  for  sheer 
intellectual  interest  of  a  highly  abstract  kind  his 
fugues  have  never  been  surpassed.  Nor  are 
they,  as  those  unfamiliar  with  their  intricacies 
are  apt  to  suppose,  devoid  of  emotional  expres- 
sion. The  profundity,  poignancy,  and  variety 
of  the  feeling  they  express  are  as  marvelous  as 
their  consummate  beauty  of  structure.  They 
voice  every  mood,  from  the  most  earnest  and 
impassioned  gravity  to  the  lightest  banter.  They 
are  the  first  great  independent  monuments  of 
pure  music ;  and  wherever  future  musicians  may 
wander  in  the  quest  of  new  forms  and  new 
potencies  of  expression,  Bach's  fugues  will  al- 
ways stand  magnificent  on  the  horizon,  marking 
the  unassailable  eastern  heights  from  which 
pilgrimage  was  begun. 

149 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

It  is  true,  nevertheless,  not  only  that  the 
fugue  form  makes  the  severest  demands  on  the 
attention  and  intelligence  of  the  listener,  but 
also  that,  because  of  its  ecclesiastical  origin  and 
polyphonic  style,  it  is  incapable  of  the  kind  of 
highly  personal,  secular  expression  that  it  was 
in  the  spirit  of  the  seventeenth  century  to  de- 
mand. The  prototypes  of  secular  expression 
are  the  popular  dance  and  song,  and  as  soon  as 
learned  musicians  had  discovered  means  to  give 
to  dance  and  song  movements  the  completeness, 
breadth,  and  organic  coherence  requisite  to  large 
beauty,  they  began  to  turn  their  attention  away 
from  the  austere  if  noble  contrapuntal  forms, 
and  to  base  their  art  on  more  popular  models. 
The  result  was  that  even  in  the  age  of  Bach  the 
suite  of  dance  and  song  movements  began  to 
be  cultivated  almost  as  sedulously  as  the  fugue, 
and  Bach  himself  wrote  suites  which  in  their 
way  are  quite  as  good  as  his  more  polyphonic 
works.  The  second  great  phase  in  the  applica- 
tion to  pure  music  of  the  principles  of  metrical 
and  harmonic  design  is  represented  by  the  Suite. , 

As  practiced  by  Bach,  the  suite  is  a  series  of 
dances  and  songs,  written  in  a  style  partly  poly- 
phonic and  partly  monodic  (that  is,  consisting 

150 


THE     PRINCIPLES     OF     PURE     MUSIC 

of  a  single  melody  with  subsidiary  accompani- 
ment). His  introductory  movements,  alle- 
mandes  in  the  French  suites,  preludes  in  the 
English,  are  stately  or  energetic  contrapuntal 
pieces,  intended  to  commence  the  suite  with  an 
impression  of  dignity.  They  are  followed  by 
courantes,  bourrees,  sarabandes,  minuets,  airs, 
and  gavottes,  all  more  or  less  definitely  rhyth- 
mical and  animated  ;  and  the  concluding  move- 
ment is  generally  a  rollicking  gigue.  These 
suites  of  Bach  may  be  considered  perfect  mod- 
els of  the  form. 

Now,  when  we  contrast  the  suite  with  the 
fugue,  the  first  difference  that  strikes  us  is  that 
while  the  fugue,  of  polyphonic  and  ecclesiastical 
origin,  is  not  definitely  rhythmical,  but  proceeds 
somewhat  amblingly  and  without  division  into 
segments  of  definite  duration,  the  suite  move- 
ments, owing  their  origin  as  they  do  either  to 
songs  intended  to  be  sung  to  verses  of  equal 
length,  or  to  dances  intended  to  accompany 
symmetrical  motions  of  the  body,  are  markedly 
rhythmical — are  made  up,  in  fact,  of  phrases  of 
equal  length,  balancing  one  another  and  giving 
an  impression  of  complete  symmetry.  A  fugue 
proceeds  like  a  prose  sentence ;  a  gavotte  or  a 

*5« 


BEETHOVEN  AND  HIS   FORERUNNERS 

bourree  or  a  minuet  sounds  more  like  a  stanza 
of  verses.  In  short,  the  fundamental  element 
in  a  dance  or  song  is  not  a  fragmentary  motif, 
but  a  complete  phrase,  filling,  as  a  rule,  two 
measures,  though  sometimes  four,  eight,  or  even 
three  or  five.  The  phrase  begins  with  a  motif, 
but  fills  it  out  with  additional  matter  rounded 
off  by  some  kind  of  cadence.  That  the  phrase 
is  thus  a  more  complex  and  extended  unit  than 
the  motif,  a  few  examples  from  Bach  will  make 
clear. 


Figure  XII.    Examples  of  phrases. 
Gavotte  from  Bach's  Fifth  French  Suite. 


$ 


Phrase  i. 


w=?=? 


m 


Lm 


Phrase  2. 

— ' d — v — ^ — 

M=t 

=iF    *= 

fe ft   '»    ? 

-* *    *    f.     •    '     r 

;  *  *-j- 

S* — 1 — P-f-  x  — r 

— s — ' 

t — * — 

etc. 

f^a- — i — f— 

-4 F » 

-* 

fcS^fl M V 

1 p— 

— 0 — 
— 1 

1 *-  ._ 

— l ' 

I5» 


THE      PRINCIPLES     OF    PURE      MUSIC 


Bounce,  from  Bach's  Third  Suite  for  'cello. 
Phrase  I. 


i 


#— *- 


1 1 0 • m « 0 F 

L^      '    f        i    ?    * 1 — "--p 


££ 


*     0     • 


m 

1  JT  ' 


-* 


It  will  be  seen  at  once  that  in  each  case  the 
second  phrase  answers  or  supplements  the  first. 
Like  it  in  length  and  in  general  contour,  it  is 
at  the  same  time  more  positive  and  final,  so 
that  the  combined  effect  of  the  two  is  much  like 
that  of  a  couplet  of  verses.  The  first  phrase, 
in  fact,  arouses  in  our  minds  an  expectation, 
which  only  the  second  can  satisfy;  so  that  we 
have  here  a  new  and  larger  application  of  the 
now  familiar  device  for  binding  together  suc- 
cessive  impressions.     So   characteristic    is    the 

153 


BEETHOVEN  AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

supplementation  of  one  phrase  by  another  that 
theorists  have  adopted  a  set  terminology  sug- 
gested by  it,  calling  the  first  phrase  in  all  such 
cases  the  "  antecedent  phrase,"  and  the  second 
the  "consequent  phrase."  It  will  also  be 
noted,  however,  that  the  pair  of  phrases,  once 
heard,  becomes  itself  a  unit  in  the  mind,  and 
arouses  a  new  expectation  of  further  matter  to 
establish  a  still  larger  balance  ,•  and  a  reference 
to  the  pieces  of  Bach  cited  will  show  that  Bach 
in  each  case  follows  up  his  pair  of  two-measure 
phrases  by  a  four-measure  phrase  which  supple- 
ments them  as  they  supplemented  each  other. 
And  so  the  process  goes  on,  the  piece  growing 
ever  larger  and  more  complex  by  a  regular 
accretion,  until  at  last  a  phrase  of  definite  and 
entire  finality  is  reached,  and  the  movement 
stands  complete.  All  short  songs  and  dances 
illustrate  this  progressive  accretion  of  phrases 
into  larger  and  larger  units,  by  means  of  a  con- 
stant unfolding  of  new  expectations  and  fulfil- 
ments. To  trace  it  out,  to  analyse  what  the  com- 
poser has  so  ingeniously  built  up,  is  one  of  the 
most  fascinating  of  studies  ;  for  it  shows  us  how 
the  simplest  song  is  organic  like  a  crystal,  a 
flower,  or  an  animal. 

i54 


THE      PRINCIPLES     OF     PURE      MUSIC 

It  is  neither  possible  nor  desirable  to  lay 
down  here  any  rigid  rules  as  to  the  metrical  or 
harmonic  relationships  between  the  phrases. 
Generally,  the  metrical  balance  is  fairly  simple ; 
a  two-measure  phrase  is  usually  answered  by 
another  of  the  same  length  ;  two  such  phrases 
are  often  answered  by  a  single  four-measure 
phrase.  But  sometimes  four  measures  are  an- 
swered by  two  ;  and  not  infrequently  three-  or 
five-measure  phrases  appear  unexpectedly  but 
with  quite  satisfactory  effect.  The  sense  of 
balance  must  be  given — that  is  all  we  can  say : 
just  how  it  shall  be  given  will  depend,  as  Mr. 
Weller  would  say,  "on  the  taste  and  fancy  of  the 
composer."  As  for  the  harmonic  relationships, 
endless  variety  is  possible.  Yet  we  may  here 
point  out  certain  general  principles.  Every 
phrase,  as  we  have  seen,  ends  with  some  sort  of 
a  cadence,  strong  or  weak  according  to  the  harsh- 
ness of  the  dissonance  it  contains  and  the  near- 
ness of  its  final  chord  to  the  tonal  centre,  or 
key-note,  of  the  piece.  Now,  as  the  salient 
tones  of  any  key  are  its  tonic  and  its  dominant, 
the  most  obvious  and  natural  course  for  the 
composer  is  to  embody  these  in  the  successive 
phrases ;  and  as  the  tonic  conveys  the  impres- 
ts 


BEETHOVEN     AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

sion  of  finality  it  is  natural  to  use  that  last. 
A  glance  at  Figure  XII  will  show  that  Bach 
makes  his  antecedent  phrase, in  the  first  instance, 
end  with  a  tonic  chord,  but  a  weak  one;  in  the 
second  instance,  with  a  dominant.  In  both 
cases  the  consequent  phrase  ends  with  a  strong 
tonic.  Thus  the  harmonic  as  well  as  the  met- 
rical relations  produce  the  effect  of  expectation 
and  fulfilment,  of  antithesis  between  a  transitive 
and  a  final  impression.  This  is  the  general 
principle  of  all  harmonic  structure.  The  final 
impression  is  given  by  a  strong  tonic  chord ; 
the  mediate  impression,  arousing  the  sense  of 
anticipation,  is  given  by  some  weaker  and  con- 
trasting harmony,  in  the  vast  majority  of  cases 
the  dominant  chord.  A  full  sense  of  the  inex- 
haustible capabilities  of  this  sort  of  harmonic 
structure  can  be  gained  only  by  a  careful  anal- 
ysis of  many  pieces  such  as  the  movements  of 
Bach's  suites.  To  this  the  reader  is  recom- 
mended. 

When  once  composers  had  grasped  the  pos- 
sibilities of  structure  by  means  of  harmony, 
they  quickly  proceeded  to  work  them  out  in 
the  large,  as  applied  to  a  complete  musical  form. 
They  began  to  organize  whole  pieces  by  means 

156 


THE     PRINCIPLES      OF     PURE      MUSIC 

of  a  grouping  or  ordered  antithesis  of  different 
harmonic  centres.  Working  without  models 
and  in  the  dark,  they  made  many  false  starts 
and  wrong  moves,  they  tried  many  hybrid  and 
unstable  forms;  but  eventually,  in  the  course  of 
years  of  experiment,  they  developed  two  great 
types  of  structure,  based  on  fundamental  prin- 
ciples, and  embodied,  with  unimportant  minor 
modifications,  in  almost  all  the  suite-movements 
of  the  seventeenth  and  of  later  centuries.  The 
first  of  these  two  great  general  types  of  struc- 
ture, called  Binary  Form,  contained  two  distinct 
members  or  sections ;  the  second,  called  Ternary 
Form,  contained  three  sections. 

The  essential  principle  of  binary  form  is  the 
simplest  conceivable.  Every  piece  in  binary 
form  may  be  likened  to  a  journey  to  a  neigh- 
boring place,  followed  by  a  return  home.  "The 
King  of  France,  with  forty  thousand  men> 
marched  up  the  hill,  and  then  marched  down 
again."  In  the  case  of  binary  form,  the  king  of 
France  is  the  subject  or  theme  of  the  piece ; 
the  forty  thousand  men  are  the  variations  or 
developments  on  this  subject  that  are  worked 
out  as  the  piece  proceeds  ;  the  hill  is  the  pro- 
gress from  the  tonic  key  to  the  contrasted  tonal 

»57 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

centre,  generally  the  dominant,  or,  if  the  piece 
is  in  a  minor  key,  its  relative  major  ;  and  the 
march  down  again  is  the  return  to  the  home 
key.  More  specifically,  the  first  section  begins 
with  the  announcement  of  the  theme  in  the 
tonic  key,  and  proceeds  to  ring  changes  upon 
it,  meanwhile  modulating  to  the  contrasted  key 
and  ending  with  a  firm  and  memorable  cadence 
there.  At  this  point  the  second  section  begins, 
with  the  theme  as  at  first,  but  in  the  new  instead 
of  the  original  key ;  the  modulation  is  reversed, 
the  original  key  reentered,  and  the  same  cadence 
already  heard  repeated,  but  now  even  more 
firmly,  and  with  the  added  finality  of  the  home 
key.  The  device  is  simplicity  itself,  yet  it  ad- 
mits a  surprising  variety  of  detail  within  its 
perfectly  obvious  and  satisfying  unity  of  ulti- 
mate effect.  Most  of  Bach's  allemandes,  cour- 
antes,  airs,  sarabandes,  and  gigues,  are  executed 
in  binary  form. 

The  great  disadvantage  of  this  admirably 
concise  and  organic  structure  proved  in  the 
course  of  experience  to  be  a  certain  monotony 
and  rigidity.  As  movements  became  longer 
and  more  complex,  the  division  into  two  sec- 
tions, embodying  but  two  keys  in  spite  of  mo- 

iS8 


THE      PRINCIPLES     OF     PURE      MUSIC 

mentary  excursions  to  more  remote  centres, 
came  to  seem  rather  constricting.  There  was 
a  dearth  of  variety  about  it,  and  a  tendency  to 
obviousness.  The  element  of  contrast,  of  ad- 
venture far  afield,  was  somewhat  lacking. 
Composers  accordingly  worked  out,  of  course 
unconsciously,  a  more  various  but  equally  or- 
ganic scheme  of  design — ternary  form.  In 
ternary  form  the  first  section  is  practically  iden- 
tical with  that  of  binary  form ;  but  the  second, 
instead  of"  marching  down  again,"  makes  the 
contrasting  tonal  centre  it  has  reached  but  a 
starting-point  for  still  further  excursions.  It 
modulates  freely,  using  to  the  utmost  the  privi- 
lege of  admission  to  all  the  keys  of  the  gamut 
that  music  owes  to  Bach  and  his  system  of  equal 
temperament ;  it  plays  with  the  theme,  subject- 
ing it  to  the  modes  of  development  we  have 
already  studied;  it  indulges  in  all  sorts  of  pranks 
and  whimsies,  departing  as  much  as  possible  from 
the  set  formality  of  the  first  section  ;  in  a  word, 
it  endeavors  to  establish  a  complete  contrast  with 
what  has  gone  before,  and  while  never  violating 
logic,  to  get  away  as  far  as  possible  from  the 
beaten  track,  from  the  rut  of  routine.  Then, 
after  this  interregnum  of  variety,  comes  the  third 

*59 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

section  with  an  emphatic  reassertion  of  regu- 
larity, presenting  once  more  the  subject  as  at 
first,  and  in  the  tonic  key,  vindicating  the  unity 
of  the  movement  of  the  whole,  and  rounding 
it  out  to  orderly  completeness.  Splendid  exam- 
ples of  this  splendidly  organic  structure  are  most 
of  the  preludes,  gavottes,  bourrees,  and  minuets 
of  Bach's  suites. 

In  the  suite,  then,  as  it  was  practiced  by  Bach 
and  other  seventeenth-century  composers,  we 
see  operative  a  constantly  broadening  applica- 
tion of  the  use  of  expectation  and  fulfilment,  in 
the  interests  of  organic  structure.  Applying 
to  artistic  music  those  methods  of  metrical  and 
harmonic  form  that  had  long  determined  the 
growth  of  folk-song  and  dance,  the  composers 
of  this  period  gradually  learned  to  make  even 
wider  and  more  intricate  syntheses  of  their  ma- 
terials. So  skilfully  did  they  avail  themselves 
of  the  relations  between  contrasting  harmonic 
centres  that  they  were  able  eventually  to  write 
whole  movements  as  firmly  organic,  as  deftly 
coordinated,  as  a  vertebrate  animal.  By  the 
ever-extending  use  of  thematic  variation  and  of 
free  modulation,  they  made  their  pieces  as  various 
as  they  were  systematic.     And  at  last,  in  ternary 

1 60 


THE     PRINCIPLES     OF    PURE     MUSIC 

form,  they  established  that  succession  of  state- 
ment, contrast,  and  reassertion,  which  seems 
even  to-day  the  last  word  in  the  philosophy  of 
general  musical  structure. 

The  gradual  expansion  and  increase  of  com- 
plexity in  the  movements  of  the  suite,  made  not 
only  possible  but  logically  necessary  by  the 
structural  potencies  of  these  great  principles  of 
statement,  contrast,  and  reassertion,  and  of  an- 
tithesis of  keys,  led  eventually  to  a  new  phase 
of  musical  structure,  the  third  and  last  in  the 
evolution  we  have  been  tracing.  The  suite,  in 
the  seventeenth  century  the  most  successfully 
cultivated  of  all  the  forms  of  pure  music,  gave 
place  in  the  eighteenth  century  to  a  still  higher 
form,  the  sonata,  which  has  held  the  position  of 
supremacy  ever  since.  The  sonata  form  is,  not 
only  by  tradition  but  by  natural  right,  the  norm 
of  modern  musical  structure.  Almost  all  the 
chief  works  of  all  the  great  composers  from 
Haydn  and  Mozart  to  Brahms  and  Tschai'kow- 
sky  are  cast  in  this  mould,  as  we  easily  realize 
if  we  remember  that  not  only  those  pieces  spe- 
cifically named  "  sonatas,"  but  also  trios,  quar- 
tets, quintets,  and  the  like,  and  overtures  and 
concertos  and  symphonies,  are  but   pieces  in 

161 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

sonata-form  intended  for  various  groups  of  in- 
struments. The  string  quartet  is  a  sonata  for 
two  violins,  a  viola,  and  a  'cello ;  the  concerto 
is  a  sonata  for  solo  instrument  with  orchestral 
accompaniment ;  and  the  symphony  is  a  sonata 
on  a  large  scale,  for  orchestra.  This  remarka- 
ble prevalence  of  a  single  type  of  structure  in 
modern  music  means  far  more  than  the  acci- 
dental survival,  by  inertia,  of  an  artificial  con- 
vention ;  it  means  that  this  type  of  structure  is 
on  the  whole  the  best  possible  embodiment  of 
variety  and  unity  in  tonal  effects ;  that  it  is  the 
natural  outgrowth  of  more  primitive  forms ;  and 
that  it  is  elastic  enough  to  admit  into  its  uni- 
form scheme  of  order  the  most  diverse  expres- 
sions of  individual  temperaments  and  ideals. 
Tschaikowsky's  intuition  of  beauty  in  tones  is 
different  enough  from  Haydn's  ;  and  the  for- 
mal medium  of  which  both  can  avail  themselves 
without  violence  to  their  genius  must  obviously 
be  founded  deep  in  universal  human  psychology. 
The  modern  sonata  consists,  as  a  rule,  of  four 
movements,  contrasted  in  character  and  in  key, 
but  combining  to  form  a  rational  and  complete 
whole.  In  expression,  the  movements  conform 
deftly  to  the  natural  requirements  of  human 

1 6s 


THE     PRINCIPLES     OF     PURE     MUSIC 

nature.  The  first  is  energetic,  vigorous,  and 
complex.  The  second  is  sentimental,  melan- 
choly, noble,  or  profound.  The  third  affords 
relief  from  the  emotional  concentration  of  the 
second;  it  is  a  dance,  full  of  vivacity,  humor, 
fantasy,  and  whimsical  impulse;  with  Beetho- 
ven it  becomes  a  consummate  embodiment 
of  the  spirit  of  comedy,  which  is  quite  as 
essential  a  part  of  human  nature  as  that  of 
tragedy  and  earnest  emotion.  The  fourth  and 
last  movement  is  again  vigorous  and  dashing, 
but  in  a  less  intellectual  way  than  the  first ; 
it  ends  the  whole  composition  in  a  mood  of 
simple  and  happy  animation.  As  regards  struc- 
ture, moreover,  the  movements  differ  in  con- 
formity with  the  needs  of  the  situation.  The 
first,  which  is  to  be  heard  when  the  mind  is 
most  attentive  and  unfatigued,  is  by  far  the 
most  complex, — is  indeed  often  the  only  one  in 
what  is  technically  called  "sonata-form."  The 
second,  the  interest  of  which  is  more  emotional 
than  intellectual,  is  usually  of  fairly  primitive 
structure.  The  third,  a  dance,  is  in  the  simplest//  ^ 
of  ternary  dance-forms,  that  of  the  minuet,  and, 
as  written  by  Haydn  and  Mozart,  might  almost 
be  taken  bodily  out  of  a  suite.     The  final  move- 

163 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 


ment  is  also  usually  of  simple,  obvious  struc- 
ture. 

It  is  clear,  then,  that  of  all  the  movements  of 
the  sonata,  the  minuet  is  the  nearest,  in  struc- 
ture, to  those  more  primitive  types  embodied  in 
the  suite.*  It  makes  a  link  bridging  the  gap 
between  the  older  form  and  its  more  highly- 
developed  supplanter.  A  glance  at  its  con- 
struction will  show  how  near  it  is  to  those  sim- 
ple ternary  forms  already  described  in  connec- 
tion with  the  suite.  The  symphonic  minuet  of 
Haydn  is  built  up  out  of  phrases,  welded  to- 
gether in  the  manner  now  so  familiar  to  us. 

Figure  AIM.    Theme  of  Minuet,  in  Haydn's  "Surprise"  Symphony. 


£=JE 


SF 


fcfe      ft 


#  -  .  * 
-» — P- 


t=tr 


*  A  still  more  primitive  type  of  structure,  occasionally  but  not 
uniformly  used  in  symphonies  and  sonatas,  is  the  variation  form. 
This  consists  of  a  theme,  generally  in  simple  binary  or  ternary 
form,  subjected  to  many  successive  modifications  or  "variations," 
generally  of  a  superficial  kind.  Though  low  in  the  scale  of 
musical  organisms,  it  is  surprisingly  effective  in  the  hands  of  real 
masters  of  musical  development  such  as  Beethoven  and  Brahms. 

164 


THE     PRINCIPLES     OF     PURE     MUSIC 


3— *" 


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But  there  is  a  considerable  increase  in  the  sub- 
tlety with  which  the  phrases  are  combined,  in 
the  "  modelling,"  so  to  speak,  of  the  melody. 
Greater  variety  is  perceptible,  the  balance  of  the 
phrases  is  less  obvious,  while  equally  satisfac- 
tory. The  structure,  in  the  more  extended 
sense,  is  ternary.*  The  first  section  of  Haydn's 
Minuet,  just  cited,  ends,  after  eighteen  meas- 
ures, in  the  dominant  key.  The  second  sec- 
tion, or  section  of  contrast,  contains  some  pas- 
sages that  are  markedly  different  from  the  origi- 
nal theme,  though  congruous  with  it,  and  modu- 
lates so  far  afield  as  E-flat  major  (the  home  key 
being  G).  After  twenty-two  measures  of  this 
digression,  the  section  of  reassertion  enters  with 
the  original  theme  in  the  tonic  key,  lasts  twenty- 
two  measures,  and  ends  strongly  in  the  home 
key.     The  minuet  proper,  as  with  Bach,  is  fol- 

*This  is  the  case  with  the  Trio,  or  second    Minuet,  as  well 
as  with  the  Minuet  proper. 

165 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

lowed  by  a  similar  short  piece,  called  the  trio, 
put  in  for  the  sake  of  contrast.  After  it  the 
minuet  recurs;  and  it  is  an  interesting  fact  that 
the  whole  movement  is  thus  a  large  example  of 
the  same  device  of  statement,  contrast,  and  re- 
assertion  that  is  exemplified  in  its  parts.  In 
other  words,  the  whole  minuet  is  a  "  statement," 
the  whole  trio  a  "contrast,"  and  the  repeated 
minuet  a  "reassertion."  We  see  here,  then,  the 
fundamental  form  which  we  described  as  ternary, 
and  which  may  be  symbolised  by  the  letters  A 
B  A,  utilized  as  a  structural  agent  both  in  the 
individual  parts,  and  in  the  whole  of  the  move- 
ment. The  symphonic  minuet  is  quite  obvious- 
ly the  child  of  the  suite  minuet,  but  a  child  ap- 
proaching maturity,  becoming  complex  and  in- 
tricate in  coordination. 

The  form  generally  adopted  for  the  last  move- 
ment of  sonatas  exemplifies  a  different  way  of 
utilizing  the  same  general  principles  of  design. 
As  its  name  of  "  rondo  "  implies,  it  consists  of 
a  constant  recurrence  or  "  coming  around  "  of 
the  main  thematic  idea,  which,  as  before,  we  may 
call  A;  but  with  several  contrasting  sections, 
instead  of  only  one.  The  rondo  type  of  structure 
may  be  symbolized  by  the  letters  A  B  A  C  A  D  A, 
166 


THE     PRINCIPLES     OF     PURE     MUSIC 

etc.  It  embodies,  obviously  enough,  a  greater 
variety  than  the  simpler  dance  form  out  of  which 
it  grew,  and  at  the  same  time  preserves  unity  by 
the  repetition  of  the  main  theme.  It  is  less  per- 
fectly coordinated,  however,  than  the  minuet ; 
for  as  each  episode  occurs  but  once  there  is  a 
deficiency  of  logic  and  of  artistic  economy  ;  and 
as  the  principle  of  the  form  is  sectional  there  is 
no  intrinsic  reason  why  it  should  not  be  pro- 
longed indefinitely.  It  is,  therefore,  an  essen- 
tially imperfect  and  indeterminate  organism,  al- 
though it  is  serviceable  enough  as  the  mould  of 
a  movement  in  which  gaiety  and  general  anima- 
tion are  more  important  than  highly  articulated 
plastic  beauty. 

The  slow  movement  is  of  all  the  parts  of  the 
sonata  the  least  uniform  in  structure.  Often  it 
is  written  in  the  primitive  aria-form,  identical 
with  the  minuet  form  ;  sometimes  it  is  an  adap- 
tation of  rondo  form  to  the  exigencies  of  deliber- 
ate movement  and  emotional  eloquence;  and  not 
infrequently  it  is  a  modification  of  "  first  move- 
ment form,"  or  sonata  form  proper.  Its  value 
depends  but  little  on  its  structure,  and  almost 
entirely  on  its  expressive  qualities. 

Of  all  the  movements  of  the  sonata,  as  has 
167 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

already  been  said,  the  first,  which  comes  when 
the  listener  is  fresh  and  disposed  to  give  minute 
and  unflagging  attention,  is  the  most  complex. 
First  movement  form,  however,  is  but  a  further 
application  of  the  simple  principles  of  statement, 
contrast,  and  reassertion,  and  of  contrast  of  keys, 
that  are  already  operative,in  an  easily  understood 
way,  in  the  minuet,  the  aria,  and  the  rondo.  The 
first  movement  of  a  regular  sonata  begins  with  a 
first  subject,  or  theme,  in  the  tonic  key,  built,  of 
course,  upon  a  striking,  individual,  and  memora- 
ble motif.  After  this  has  been  well  impressed 
upon  the  mind  by  a  certain  amount  of  repetition, 
either  literal  or  modified,  there  is  a  formal  transi- 
tion to  a  contrasted  key,  generally  the  dominant, 
or,  if  the  movement  be  in  minor,  the  relative 
major,  and  a  second  subject  enters,  is  in  its  turn 
well  impressed  upon  the  attention,  and  ends  with 
an  emphatic  cadence  or  close  in  the  contrasted 
key.  This  much  makes  up  one  complete  sec- 
tion of  the  form.  Historically,  it  is  an  out- 
growth of  the  first  part  of  an  ordinary  small 
ternary  form,  by  simple  magnification  of  the 
elements,  and  increasing  definition  of  and  con- 
trast between  them.  What  was  at  first  but  an 
inconspicuous    modulation    becomes    a    formal 

1 68 


THE     PRINCIPLES     OF     PURE     MUSIC 

transition ;  and  what  was  but  a  cadence  in  the 
contrasting  key  becomes  a  new  subject,  with  its 
own  individuality  and  function  in  the  organism. 
And  thus  is  built  up  the  section  of  statement, 
with  quite  a  high  degree  of  complexity  of  its 
own.  This  is  sometimes  called  the  Exposition. 
Next  comes  the  "  Free  Fantasia"  or  "Work- 
ing Out,"  the  section  of  contrast,  derived  from 
the  similar  section  in  the  minuet,  but  far  longer 
and  more  intricate.  In  material  it  is  a  develop- 
ment, or  manipulation,  of  the  thematic  germs 
stated  in  the  exposition,  by  aid  of  all  the  devices 
for  developing  motifs  that  we  have  traced. 
Structurally,  its  function  is  to  establish  complete 
contrast,  to  do  away  with  the  impression  of  rigid 
system  that  the  first  section  is  likely  to  engen- 
der, and  in  every  possible  way  to  give  variety, 
surprise,  and  interest  to  the  musical  tissue.  It 
is  accordingly  absolutely  free  in  modulation,  un- 
systematic in  arrangement,  and  irregular  in 
metrical  division.  In  it  the  composer  gives  rein 
to  his  fancy,  obeys  the  impulse  of  the  moment, 
and  lets  his  ingenuity  rather  than  his  shaping 
instinct  determine  his  progress.  Yet  the  section 
of  contrast  is  not  a  mere  limbo  of  chaotic  im- 
pulses.    It  must  have  its  own  logic,  it  must  be 

169 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

a  true  "development,"  it  must  be  throughout 
obviously  founded  on  the  themes  already  stated. 
There  is  no  part  of  the  sonata-form  in  which  all 
the  composer's  strength  is  more  taxed  than  the 
Free  Fantasia  ;  here,  indeed,  freedom  brings  its 
own  heavy  responsibility. 

After  the  contrast  comes  the  reassertion,  or 
"  Reprise."  Having  displayed  his  materials  in 
every  light  his  imagination  can  suggest,  and 
having  meanwhile  almost  obliterated  his  hearer's 
sense  of  the  key  of  the  piece,  the  composer  now 
carefully  prepares  to  gather  up  all  his  flying 
threads,  to  stamp  all  this  baffling  variety  with 
ultimate  unity.  Reentering  the  home  key,  which 
has  gained  by  its  long  silence  a  new  power  to 
delight  and  satisfy,  he  restates  his  two  subjects 
or  themes,  in  their  original  guise,  but  now  both 
in  the  home  key.  As  the  essayist,  after  all  his 
examples  and  figures  and  metaphors,  returns  to 
a  bald,  emphatic,  final  assertion  of  his  thesis, 
the  composer  now,  after  all  his  playing  with  his 
ideas,  reinstates  them  in  more  than  their  primi- 
tive simplicity.*  To  give  them  perfect  finality 
he  even  reiterates  them  with  fresh  assertiveness, 

*  At  first  the  second  subject  was  in  a  contrasted  key  $  now 
both  subjects  are  in  the  tonic. 

170 


THE      PRINCIPLES      OF     PURE    MUSIC 

seems  unwilling  to  leave  them,  and  insists,  in  his 
Coda  or  tail-piece,  that  we  take  away  with  us  a 
full  sense  of  their  import.  Thus  restatement, 
emphatic  and  prolonged,  following  upon  contrast 
and  digression,  completes  the  unity  of  the  whole 
composition,  and  closes  the  cycle  to  our  satisfac- 
tion. It  is  impossible  to  conceive  a  type  of 
musical  structure  which  should  better  satisfy  our 
demand  for  profusion  of  detail  together  with 
clarity  of  fundamental  shape,  than  this  highly  per- 
fected product  of  a  long  evolution,  sonata-form. 
It  must  not  be  supposed  that  this  wonderful 
scheme  of  design  reached  its  maturity  in  any 
short  period  of  time,  or  through  the  labors  of  a 
few  musicians.  Infinitely  slow  and  gradual  was 
its  growth;  and  though  the  immediate  followers 
of  J.  S.  Bach,  and  especially  his  own  son,  Philip 
Emmanuel  Bach,  brought  it  to  a  condition  in 
which  its  general  outline  was  pretty  well  estab- 
lished, it  was  still,  at  the  time  when  Haydn  ap- 
peared on  the  scene,  incapable  of  that  free  man- 
ipulation which  high  musical  beauty  requires. 
It  was  Haydn  who  removed  the  last  traces  of 
stiffness  and  primitive  angularity  from  the  sonata- 
form;  it  was  Haydn  who  brought  it  to  complete 
definiteness  as  an  artistic  device  and  stamped  it 

171 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

with  lasting  individuality  ;  and  it  was  Haydn 
who  at  least  hinted  and  foreshadowed  those 
subtleties  and  accommodations  in  its  treatment 
which,  as  extended  by  Mozart  and  Beethoven, 
perfected  its  capabilities  and  brought  it  to  its 
mature  estate  as  the  most  vital,  elastic  and  beau- 
tiful of  modern  musical  forms. 


i7» 


CHAPTER 
HAYDN 


CHAPTER     V 
HAYDN 


N  the  early  eighteenth  century 
there  lived  in  a  small  village 
called  Rohrau,  situated  near  the 
Leitha  River,  which  forms  the 
boundary  between  Lower  Aus- 
tria and  Hungary,  a  certain  wheelwright  and 
parish  sexton,  named  Matthias  Haydn,  and  his 
wife.  They  were  simple  peasant  people,  a  little 
more  educated  than  was  usual  with  their  class. 
Matthias  Haydn,  besides  a  smattering  of  gen- 
eral information,  had  a  talent  for  harp-playing, 
though  he  could  not  read  music.  Frau  Haydn's 
accomplishments  ran  in  the  direction  of  domes- 
tic management  and  religion  ;  and  as  she  even- 
tually found  herself  the  mother  of  twelve  chil- 
dren, she  may  be  supposed  to  have  stood  in 
need   of   both.     Franz  Joseph   Haydn,  born 


*75 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

either  on  March  31  or  April  1,  1732,  was  the 
second  of  these  children.  He  was  destined  to 
create  an  epoch  in  the  art  of  music. 

How,  in  spite  of  his  rather  commonplace 
parentage  and  his  heavy  burden  of  poverty,  he 
managed  to  develop  so  remarkable  an  artistic 
genius,  has  been  a  problem  most  puzzling  to 
students  ;  but  much  light  has  been  thrown  upon 
the  whole  matter  by  the  recent  investigations 
of  a  Croatian  scholar,  Dr.  Frantisek  S.  Kuhac, 
made  accessible  to  readers  of  English  by  Mr. 
W.  H.  Hadow's  "A  Croatian  Composer." 
These  researches  have  shown  that  the  whole 
region  about  Rohrau  was  inhabited  by  a  largely 
Croatian  or  South  Slavonic  population  ;  that 
Haydn  himself  was  probably  of  Croatian  her- 
edity ;  and  that  at  the  very  least  his  youth  was 
spent  among  one  of  the  most  naturally  musical 
of  all  races.  "  One  in  every  three  of  the 
Croats,"  says  Dr.  Kuhac,  M  either  sings,  plays, 
or  composes."  "  The  men  sing  at  their  plows," 
says  Mr.  Hadow,  "  the  girls  sing  as  they  fill 
their  water-pots  at  the  fountain  ;  by  every  vil- 
lage inn  you  may  hear  the  jingle  of  the  tam- 
bura,  and  watch  the  dancers  footing  it  on  the 
green."  Here,  then,  was  an  environment  pre- 
176 


HAYDN 

cisely  suited  to  develop  the  qualities  we  shall ' 
observe  in  the  mature  Haydn  ;  and  it  helps  to 
an  understanding  of  almost  every  phase  of  his 
genius  if  we  remember  that  as  a  boy  he  was 
surrounded,  not  by  stolid  German  peasants, 
amiable  but  inexpressive,  nor  by  a  cultivated 
but  unspontaneous  aristocracy,  but  by  a  race 
of  natural  musicians,  in  whom  dance  and  song 
were  native  and  necessary  modes  of  expression. 
His  formal  musical  education  was  less  pro- 
pitious. At  the  age  of  six  he  began  the  study 
of  the  violin,  the  harpsichord,  and  singing,  un- 
der one  Frankh,  a  distant  relative,  in  the  town 
of  Hamburg  ;  but  was  so  neglected  and  abused 
that  in  later  years  he  was  wont  to  say :  "  From 
Frankh  I  got  more  cuffs  than  gingerbread." 
He  was  probably  glad  enough  when,  two  years 
later,  he  was  able  to  go  to  Vienna  as  a  choir- 
boy in  St.  Stephen's  Cathedral.  Here  he  stayed 
ten  years,  half-starved,  insufficiently  clothed, 
and  carelessly  taught.  Only  his  own  indomi- 
table energy  enabled  him  to  learn  anything  at 
all.  He  worked  while  the  other  choir-boys 
were  at  play  ;  he  practiced  indefatigably  on  his 
little  clavier,  which  was  so  small  and  light  that 
he  could  take  it  under  his  arm  to  a  quiet  place ; 
177 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

he  covered  reams  of  music  paper  with  his  com- 
positions, thinking  that  Cl  it  must  be  all  right  if 
the  paper  was  nice  and  full ;"  he  expended  six 
of  his  father's  hard-earned  florins  on  ponderous 
text  books  of  counterpoint  and  thoroughbass, 
and  spent  wakeful  nights  poring  over  them, 
Meanwhile  his  relations  with  the  musical  direc- 
tor in  authority  became  more  and  more  strained, 
until  finally,  in  November,  1749,  there  was 
open  rupture,  and  Haydn,  seventeen  years  old, 
friendless,  and  without  money,  was  turned  into 
the  street. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  exaggerate  the  hard- 
ships he  now  had  to  endure.  By  playing  his 
violin  at  balls  and  weddings,  by  making  arrange- 
ments of  the  compositions  of  amateurs  for  a 
pittance,  by  teaching — in  a  word,  by  any  drudg- 
ery that  anyone  would  pay  for,  he  managed  to 
keep  himself  from  starving.  And  through  it 
all,  in  his  dimly-lighted,  unheated  attic,  with 
roof  so  out  of  repair  that  snow  and  rain  fell  on 
the  bed,  and  the  water,  of  a  winter  morning, 
froze  in  the  pitcher,  he  continued,  as  best  he 
could,  his  own  studies  in  composition.  Years 
afterward  he  wrote  of  this  period  of  his  life, 
with  his  usual  quaint  piety :  "  I  was  forced  for 

178 


HAYDN 

eight  whole  years  to  gain  a  scanty  livelihood 
by  giving  lessons ;  many  a  genius  is  ruined  by 
this  miserable  mode  of  earning  daily  bread,  as 
it  leaves  no  time  for  study.  I  could  never  have 
accomplished  even  what  I  did  if,  in  my  zeal  for 
composition,  I  had  not  pursued  my  studies 
through  the  night.  ...  I  offer  up  to  Almighty 
God  all  eulogiums,  for  to  Him  alone  do  I  owe 
them.  My  sole  wish  is  neither  to  offend  against 
my  neighbor  nor  my  gracious  Prince,  but  above 
all  our  merciful  God." 

Although  Haydn  had  at  this  time  to  endure 
humiliations  and  slights  as  well  as  actual  want, 
his  situation  was  gradually  ameliorated  by  the 
patronage  of  some  wealthy  music-lovers  with 
whom  his  growing  reputation  as  a  composer 
brought  him  acquainted.  His  first  fixed  post 
was  that  of  music-director  to  a  Bohemian  noble- 
man, Count  Morzin,  for  whose  band  he  wrote, 
in  i759>  his  first  symphony.  In  the  next  year, 
however,  Count  Morzin  married  and  discon- 
tinued his  musical  establishment,  and  Haydn 
was  left  for  a  short  time  without  definite  work, 
until  in  1761  he  was  installed  in  the  post  he 
held  uninterruptedly  for  thirty  years.  His  own 
marriage,  meanwhile,  took  place  in  1760. 

179 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

How  Haydn,  who  was  quite  as  prudent  as 
he  was  amiable,  could  have  been  so  rash  as  to 
marry  at  just  this  moment,  it  is  difficult  to  ex- 
plain ;  especially  as  he  married,  not  the  woman 
he  had  fallen  in  love  with,  but  her  elder  sis- 
ter. The  whole  affair  is  almost  farcically  per- 
verse. A  young  composer  of  twenty-eight, just 
pulling  himself  up  at  length  on  the  shelving 
bank  of  patronage,  out  of  the  slough  of  miscel- 
laneous drudgery  in  which  he  has  been  welter- 
ing for  years,  offers  to  encumber  himself  at  the 
critical  moment  with  the  daughter  of  one  Kel- 
ler, a  barber.  The  lady,  for  unknown  reasons, 
among  which  may  or  may  not  have  been  a  dread 
of  the  quagmire,  betakes  herself  to  a  nunnery. 
Whereupon  the  barber  persuades  the  composer 
to  marry  the  older  daughter,  Anna  Maria. 
The  outcome  of  this  marriage,  which  took  place 
in  November,  1760,  proved,  as  might  have  been 
expected,  unfortunate.  The  wife  began  almost 
immediately  to  treat  her  husband  with  indiffer- 
ence and  petty  malignity,  which  rapidly  in- 
creased. She  seemed  not  to  care  whether  he 
composed  or  cobbled,  so  long  as  he  supplied 
her  with  money ;  she  used  his  manuscripts  for 
curling-papers  ;    when   he   was  in   London  in 

180 


HAYDN 


1 79 1  she  wrote  him  appeals  for  money  where- 
with to  buy  "  a  widow's  home."  Altogether 
the  uncongeniality  was  intolerable,  and  the  pair 
lived  together  but  a  few  years,  although  Frau 
Haydn  did  not  die  until  1800. 

The  thirty  years  from  1761  to  1791,  a  period 
of  the  utmost  importance  in  the  development  of 
Haydn's  genius,  was  of  the  greatest  monotony 
so  far  as  events  are  concerned.  His  post  was 
that  of  musical  director  or  Kapellmeister  (at  first 
Vice-Kapellmeister),  to  the  great,  princely  fam- 
ily of  Esterhazy,  one  of  the  most  wealthy  and  in- 
fluential of  the  noble  families  of  Hungary.  He 
served  them  both  at  Eisenstadt,  at  the  foot  of  the 
Leitha  mountains,  in  Hungary,  where  Prince 
Paul  Anton  Esterhazy  was  the  reigning  prince 
in  1 76 1,  and  at  Esterhaz,  the  magnificent  palace, 
with  groves,  grottoes,  hot-houses,  deer-parks, 
andflowergardens,  which  Prince  Nicholas  erected 
in  1766.  Of  the  musician's  duties  and  social  status 
in  this  princely  house,  an  idea  may  be  gathered 
from  the  following  sentences  from  the  contract 
entered  into  at  the  beginning  of  his  term  of  ser- 
vice as  Vice-Kapellmeister : 

"  The  said  Joseph  Hayden  shall  be  considered 
and  treated  as  a  member  of  the  household.  There- 


181 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

fore  his  Serene  Highness  is  graciously  pleased  to 
place  confidence  in  his  conducting  himself  as  be- 
comes an  honourable  official  of  a  princely  house. 
He  must  be  temperate,  not  showing  himself  over- 
bearing towards  his  musicians,  but  mild  and  le- 
nient, straightforward  and  composed.  It  is  es- 
pecially to  be  observed  that  when  the  orchestra 
shall  be  summoned  to  perform  before  company, 
the  said  Joseph  Hayden  shall  take  care  that  he 
and  all  members  of  his  orchestra  do  follow  the 
instructions  given,'and  appear  in  white  stockings, 
white  linen,  powdered,  and  either  with  a  pig-tail 
or  a  tie-wig. 

"  Seeing  that  the  other  musicians  are  referred 
for  directions  to  the  said  Vice-Kapellmeister, 
therefore  he  should  take  the  more  care  to  con- 
duct himself  in  an  exemplary  manner,  abstain- 
ing from  undue  familiarity,  and  from  vulgarity 
in  eating,  drinking  and  conversation,  not  dispen- 
sing with  the  respect  due  to  him,  but  acting  up- 
rightly and  influencing  his  subordinates  to  pre- 
serve such  harmony  as  is  becoming  in  them, 
remembering  how  displeasing  the  consequences 
of  any  discord  or  dispute  would  be  to  his  Serene 
Highness. 

"  The  said  Vice-Kapellmeister  shall  be  under 
182 


HAYDN 

an  obligation  to  compose  such  music  as  his  Se- 
rene Highness  may  command,  and  to  retain  it 
for  the  absolute  use  of  his  Highness,  and  not 
to  compose  anything  for  any  other  person 
without  the  knowledge  and  permission  of  his 
Highness. 

"  The  said  Vice-Kapellmeister  shall  take  care- 
ful charge  of  all  music  and  musical  instruments, 
and  shall  be  responsible  for  any  injury  that  may 
occur  to  them  from  carelessness  or  neglect." 

The  demands  made  upon  "  the  said  Joseph 
Hayden"  were  obviously  severe;  but  he  had 
in  return  many  advantages.  He  was  secure  from 
want,  a  great  consideration  to  one  who  had 
starved  in  garrets  and  sung  in  the  streets  and  the 
cafes  for  his  supper.  He  came  in  contact  with 
many  interesting  people,  both  among  the  social 
and  the  professional  guests  of  Esterhaz.  Above 
all,  he  had  a  good  orchestra  at  his  command,  and 
he  was  not  only  privileged,  but  obliged,  to  com- 
pose for  it  incessantly.  Thus  he  was  incited  to 
constant  study  and  experiment ;  so  that  before 
many  years  had  elapsed  he  had  become  a  thor- 
ough master  of  his  medium,  with  the  requisite 
technical  skill  to  express  any  idea  that  his  genius 
might  suggest.    It  was  largely  during  these  years 

183 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

that  he  poured  out  his  endless  series  of  master- 
pieces of  chamber  and  orchestral  music. 

One  result  of  all  the  work  thus  accomplished 
was  that  when,  late  in  1790,  Prince  Anton  Es- 
terhazy  dismissed  his  entire  corps  of  musicians, 
Haydn's  reputation  was  so  widespread  that  he 
was  immediately  solicited  by  one  Salomon,  a 
violinist  and  conductor,  to  make  a  trip  to  Lon- 
don. Hard  as  it  must  have  been  for  him,  at  his 
age  of  nearly  sixty,  to  exchange  his  studious  hab- 
its for  the  fatigues  and  excitement  of  travel,  the 
opportunity  was  too  good  to  be  lost ;  and  late 
in  1790  he  set  out  with  Salomon,  reaching  Lon- 
don early  in  the  next  year. 

In  reading  of  this  visit  to  England,  as  well  as 
of  the  second  one  which  Haydn  made  three 
years  later,  one  hardly  knows  whether  to  be  more 
impressed  by  the  fame  and  prosperity  which 
came  to  him  from  all  sides, or  by  the  homely  sim- 
plicity with  which  he  received  them.  This  quiet, 
precise,  pious  old  kapellmeister  was  the  object 
of  the  most  flattering  attentions  from  everyone  in 
London  ;  he  was  half  worshipped  by  the  ladies, 
he  was  feted  by  noble  families,  he  was  the  guest 
of  the  Prince  of  Wales.  His  works  were  awaited 
with  impatience  and  received  with  enthusiasm  ; 

184 


H  AYD  N 

he  was  honored  with  the  Degree  of  Doctor  of 
Music  by  Oxford  University;  his  pockets  were 
filled  with  enough  English  gold  to  buy  him  Ger- 
man soup  for  the  rest  of  his  life.  Yet  he  was 
almost  as  much  overwhelmed  as  delighted  with 
all  this  unwonted  excitement.  With  a  charac- 
teristic mixture  of  homeliness  and  piety  he  wrote 
to  his  friend  Frau  von  Genzinger  :  "  Oh  !  how 
often  do  I  long  to  be  beside  you  at  the  piano, 
even  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  and  then  to  have 
some  good  German  soup.  But  we  cannot  have 
everything  in  this  world.  May  God  only  vouch- 
safe to  grant  me  the  health  that  I  have  hitherto 
enjoyed,  and  may  I  preserve  it  by  good  conduct 
and  out  of  gratitude  to  the  Almighty  ! " 

His  English  notebook  reveals  the  same  child- 
like attitude,  mingled  with  an  interest  in  details 
and  statistics  curiously  characteristic  of  his  mat- 
ter-of-fact mind.     Here  are  a  few  typical  entries : 

"  The  national  debt  of  England  is  estimated 
to  be  over  two  hundred  millions.  Once  it  was 
calculated  that  if  it  were  desired  to  pay  the  debt 
in  silver,  the  wagons  that  would  bring  it,  close 
together,  would  reach  from  London  to  York 
(two  hundred  miles),  each  wagon  carrying 
^6,000." 

i«5 


BEETHOVEN     AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

"  The  city  of  London  consumes  annually 
800,000  cartloads  of  coal.  Each  cart  holds 
thirteen  bags,  each  bag  two  Metzen.  Most  of 
the  coal  comes  from  Newcastle.  Often  200 
vessels  laden  with  coal  arrive  at  the  same  time. 
A  cartload  costs  iyi  pounds." 

"  Beginning  of  May,  1792,  Lord  Barrymore 
gave  a  ball  that  cost  5,000  guineas.  He  paid 
1,000  guineas  for  1,000  peaches  ;  2,000  baskets 
of  gooseberries  cost  5  shillings  apiece." 

"On  the  14th  of  December  I  dined  at  the 
house  of  Mr.  Shaw.  While  I  was  bowing  all 
round  I  suddenly  perceived  that  the  lady  of  the 
house,  besides  her  daughters  and  the  other  la- 
dies, wore  on  their  head-dresses  a  pearl-colored 
band,  of  three  fingers  breadth,  embroidered  in 
gold  with  the  name  of  Haydn,  and  Mr.  Shaw 
wore  the  name  on  the  two  ends  of  his  collar  in 
the  finest  steel  beads.  N.  B. — Mr.  Shaw  wanted 
me  to  give  him  a  souvenir,  and  I  gave  him  a 
tobacco-box  which  I  had  just  bought  for  a 
guinea.     He  gave  me  his  in  exchange." 

The  last  sentence  is  particularly  delicious  for 
its  revelation  of  Haydn's  usual  canniness.  Not 
even  his  enjoyment  of  fame  could  make  him 
forget  that  the  tobacco-box  given  away  had  cost 

186 


HAY  D  N 

him  a  guinea  ;  but  he  is  solaced  by  the  thought 
that  he  had  got  another  in  return.  One  is  re- 
minded of  the  same  trait  in  reading  his  comment 
on  the  high  prices  of  race-horses : 

"  These  horses  are  very  dear.  Prince  Wallis 
a  few  years  ago  paid  8  thousand  pounds  for  one, 
and  sold  it  again  for  6  thousand  pounds.  But 
at  the  first  race  he  won  with  it  50,000  pounds." 

The  entire  diary  exhibits  a  similar  thrifti- 
ness,  shrewdness,  and  practicality  ;  by  impress- 
ing the  reader  with  the  curiously  prosaic  and 
matter-of-fact  quality  of  Haydn's  mind,  it 
throws  as  much  light  on  the  essential  character 
of  his  music  as  on  that  of  his  personality.  Fancy 
Beethoven,  or  any  other  speculative,  imagina- 
tive mind,  going  to  see  Dr.  Herschel's  great 
telescope,  looking  through  it  at  the  stars,  and 
then  carefully  recording  in  his  journal :  "  It  is 
forty  feet  long  and  five  feet  in  diameter"  ! 

One  of  the  interesting  revelations  made  by 
Haydn's  note-book  is  that  of  his  sentimental 
attachment  to  a  certain  Mistress  Shroeter.  It 
is  a  charming  and  in  a  way  a  pathetic  story ; 
the  beginning  formal,  the  continuation  touch- 
ingly  human  in  spite  of  the  old-fashioned 
phrases  in  which  it  reaches  us,  and  the  end 
187 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

mysterious.  Mistress  Shroeter,  a  widow,  relict 
of  a  German  musician,  begins  it  in  the  follow- 
ing note,  copied  out  carefully,  together  with  all 
the  subsequent  ones,  by  Haydn  : 

"  Mrs.  Shroeter  presents  her  compliments  to 
Mr.  Haydn,  and  informs  him  she  is  just  re- 
turned to  town  and  will  be  very  happy  to  see 
him  whenever  it  is  convenient  to  him  to  give 
her  a  lesson.  James  St.,  Buckingham  Gate, 
Wednesday,  June  the  29th,  1791." 

The  lessons  thus  begun  continued  all  through 
the  period  of  the  composer's  first  London  visit, 
and  the  correspondence  soon  begins  to  reveal 
a  growing  attachment  between  the  lonely,  un- 
happily married  Haydn  and,  in  his  own  simple 
words,  "  the  English  widow  in  London  who 
loved  me."  The  letters,  quaint,  formal,  tender, 
are  couched  in  the  vocabulary  of  "  Evelina  "  and 
"  Clarissa  Harlowe;"  their  "  fair  author,"  as  one 
feels  impelled  to  call  her,  might  have  been,  with 
her  funny  little  abbreviations,  her  odd  admix- 
ture of  grandiloquence  and  impulsive  feeling, 
and  her  constant  underscoring  of  unimportant 
words,  Clarissa  herself.  A  note  of  April  12, 
1792,  will  perhaps  sufficiently  show  her  way  of 
writing : 

188 


HAYDN 

"  M.  D.  [My  dear.]  I  am  so  truly  anxious 
about  you.  I  must  write  to  beg  to  know  how 
you  do  ?  I  was  very  sorry  I  had  not  the  pleas- 
ure of  Seeing  you  this  Evening,  my  thoughts 
have  been  constantly  with  you  and  indeed  my 
D.  L.  [dear  love],  no  words  can  express  half 
the  tenderness  and  affection  I  feel  for  you.  I 
thought  you  seemed  out  of  spirits  this  morn- 
ing. I  wish  I  could  always  remove  every  trouble 
from  your  mind,  be  assured  my  D  :  I  partake 
with  the  most  perfect  sympathy  in  all  your  sen- 
sations and  my  regard  for  you  is  Stronger  every 
day.  my  best  wishes  attend  you  and  I  am  ever 
my  D.  H.  [dear  Haydn]  most  sincerely  your 
Faithful,  etc." 

Thus  tenderly  and  innocently  the  friendship 
progresses,  with  constant  protestations  of  re- 
gard, with  continual  solicitude  to  know  "  bow 
you  do  "  and  "  whether  you  have  Slept  well," 
with  little  discreet  panegyrics  over  "  your  sweet 
compositions  and  your  excellent  performance," 
and  with  many  fears  "  lest  you  fatigue  yourself 
with  such  close  application  ";  until,  with  Haydn's 
departure  for  home,  it  suddenly  and  abruptly 
closes,  never  to  be  resumed.  Did  these  two 
meet  again  when  Haydn  returned  to  London 
189 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

in  1794?  Did  the  letters  recommence?  We 
do  not  know.  The  story  ends  with  a  letter  of 
Mistress  Shroeter's,  written  just  before  Haydn's 
departure  in  1792,  beginning  with  the  hope  that 
he  has  "  Slept  well,"  and  ending  with  a  protes- 
tation of  "  inviolable  attachment." 

After  his  second  trip  to  London  was  over, 
Haydn  returned  to  Austria,  dividing  his  time 
between  Vienna  and  Esterhaz,  where  he  was 
again  made  music-director.  Getting  now  to  be 
an  old  man,  he  lived  quietly,  making  few  pub- 
lic appearances.  He  composed  at  this  time  his 
famous  Austrian  National  Hymn,  as  well  as 
his  two  oratorios,  "  The  Creation  "  and  "  The 
Seasons,"  produced  respectively  in  1798  and 
in  1 801.  In  1803  he  made  his  final  appear- 
ance as  a  conductor,  and  in  1808  he  appeared 
in  public  for  the  last  time.  The  occasion  was 
a  performance  of  "  The  Creation."  "  All  the 
great  artists  of  Vienna  were  present,"  says  Mr. 
Hadden,  "  among  them  Beethoven  and  Hum- 
mel. Prince  Esterhazy  had  sent  his  carriage 
to  bring  the  veteran  to  the  hall,  and  as  he  was 
being  conveyed  in  an  arm-chair  to  a  place 
among  the  princes  and  nobles,  the  whole  audi- 
ence rose  to  their  feet  in  testimony  of  their  re- 
190 


HAYDN 

gard.  It  was  a  cold  night,  and  ladies  sitting 
near  swathed  him  in  their  costly  wraps  and  lace 
shawls.  The  concert  began,  and  the  audience 
was  hushed  to  silence.  When  that  magnificent 
passage  was  reached,  ?  And  there  was  light,' 
they  burst  into  loud  applause,  and  Haydn, 
overcome  with  excitement,  exclaimed  :  c  Not  I, 
but  a  Power  from  above  created  that.'  The 
performance  went  on,  but  it  proved  too  much 
for  the  old  man,  and  friends  arranged  to  take 
him  home  at  the  end  of  the  first  part.  As  he 
was  being  carried  out,  some  of  the  highest  in 
the  land  crowded  round  to  take  what  was  felt 
to  be  a  last  farewell ;  and  Beethoven  bent  down 
and  fervently  kissed  his  hand  and  forehead. 
Having  reached  the  door,  Haydn  asked  his 
bearers  to  pause  and  turn  him  towards  the  or- 
chestra. Then,  lifting  his  hand,  as  if  in  the 
act  of  blessing,  he  was  borne  out  into  the 
night." 

Near  the  end  of  May,  1809,  Haydn  began 
to  fail  rapidly.  On  the  twenty-sixth,  gathering 
his  household  and  having  himself  carried  to  the 
piano,  he  played  over  three  times  his  "  Emper- 
or's Hymn,"  with  great  emotion.  Five  days 
later  he  died.     The  curious  admixture  of  kind- 

191 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

liness  and  practical  good  sense  which  give  to 
Haydn's  character  such  an  individual  charm  ap- 
pear even  in  his  will,  a  long  and  detailed  docu- 
ment very  precisely  drawn  up.  He  bequeaths 
"  To  poor  blind  Adam  in  Eisenstadt,  24  flor- 
ins "  ;  "  To  my  gracious  Prince,  my  gold  Paris- 
ian medal  and  the  letter  that  accompanied  it, 
with  a  humble  request  to  grant  them  a  place  in 
the  museum  at  Forchtenstein  "  ;  "  To  Fraulein 
Bucholz,  100  florins.  Inasmuch  as  in  my  youth 
her  grandfather  lent  me  150  florins  when  I  greatly 
needed  them,  which,  however,  I  repaid  fifty  years 
ago."  After  many  other  bequests  he  concludes  ; 
"  I  commend  my  soul  to  my  all-  merciful  Cre- 
ator ;  my  body  I  wish  to  be  interred,  according 
to  the  Roman  Catholic  forms,  in  consecrated 
ground." 

In  personal  appearance  Haydn  was  an  odd 
mixture  of  the  ordinary  and  the  unusual,  of  com- 
monplaceness  and  distinction.  The  complexion, 
marked  with  small-pox,  was  so  dark  that  he  was 
sometimes  called  "  The  Moor  ";  the  nose  was 
strong  but  heavy  ;  the  lower  lip  thick  and  pro- 
jecting ;  the  jowl  square  and  massive.  Yet  his 
dark  gray  eyes  were  said  to  "  beam  with  benev- 
olence," and  Lavater,  the  great  physiognomist, 

19* 


HAYDN 


perceived  in  his  eyes  and  nose  "  something  out 
of  the  common,"  while  dismissing  the  mouth  and 
chin  as  Philistine.  Of  himself  Haydn  said:  "Any- 
one can  see  by  the  look  of  me  that  I  am  a  good- 
riatured  sort  of  fellow  "  ;  yet  he  confessed  that 
the  ladies,  who  generally  found  him  interesting, 
were  "  at  any  rate  not  tempted  by  my  beauty." 
The  explanation  of  these  apparent  contradic- 
tions is  to  be  found  in  the  peculiar  make-up  of 
that  individuality  of  which  the  external  appear- 
ance was  an  index.  That  mixture  of  heavy  jowl 
and  penetrative  eyes  bespoke  the  combination 
of  a  certain  rudeness,  primitiveness,  common- 
placeness  of  emotional  nature,  with  rare  intellect- 
ual vivacity  and  acumen.  We  have  already  re- 
marked the  prosaic  attitude  of  Haydn  towards 
men  and  things,  as  well  as  the  purely  intellect- 
ual alertness  with  which  he  observed  them.   His 

re- 
vision of  the  world  was  more  that  of  an  account- 
ant or  statistician  than  that  of  a  poet.  He  saw 
simply  and  clearly  ;  for  him  objects  stood  in  the 
hard  light  of  reason,  not  surrounded  by  any  haze 
of  reverie  or  atmosphere  of  emotion.  His  men- 
tal efficiency  is  especially  striking  when  we  con- 
sider the  natural  disadvantages  under  which  it 
labored.     Haydn  was  distinctly  an  uneducated 


-ii»" 


193 


BEETHOVEN   AND  HIS   FORERUNNERS 

man.  The  son  of  a  wheelwright,  in  a  petty  Aus- 
trian village,  he  had  little  schooling,  little  early 
contact  with  men  and  women,  little  commerce 
with  all  the  indefinable  influences  that  make  for 
cultivation  of  the  rarer  powers  of  intellect  and 
spirit.  He  knew  Italian  and  a  little  French,  but 
never  had  any  English  until  he  went  to  London 
at  nearly  sixty.  He  read  little,  and  did  not  care 
to  discuss  politics,  science,  or  any  art  but  music. 
He  spoke  always  in  the  strong  dialect  of  his  na- 
tive place.  Yet  by  force  of  sheer  intelligence 
and  ability  he  established  the  art  of  music  on  a 
new  basis.  Those  penetrating  gray  eyes  saw 
much  that  was  hidden  from  men  far  more  hap- 
pily born,  far  more  delicately  nurtured. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  impressive  peculiarity 
of  his  emotional  nature  is  its  normality.  Emo- 
tionally he  was  typical  rather  than  personal,  cen- 
tred in  the  common  interests  and  instincts  rather 
than  eccentric  to  them,  conservative  and  conven- 
tional rather  than  radical  and  individual.  This 
is  doubtless  the  meaning  of  that  somewhat  stolid 
jaw,  that  firm  and  vigorous,  but  rather  insensi- 
tive mouth,  that  sane  but  unimaginative  config- 
uration of  the  whole  lower  face,  the  expressive 
seat  of  the  will  and  the  feelings.     Beethoven  is 

»94 


HAYDN 

interesting  largely  for  his  departure  from  the  av- 
erage human  norm,  his  highly  developed  self- 
hood, his  inexorable  individuality  ;  Haydn,  on 
the  contrary,  compels  our  study  just  because  he 
is  so  like  other  men,  so  amply  representative  of 
them  within  their  own  limitations.  The  traits 
that  stand  out  in  him  are  traits  "  in  widest  com- 
monalty spread  "  ;  a  brisk  and  busy  vivacity,  find- 
ing itself  much  at  home  in  this  world,  with  plenty 
to  do  and  to  inquire  into  ;  connected  with  that, 
a  half-childlike  shrewdness  in  affairs,  a  canny 
ability  to  take  care  of  himself,  practical  talent, 
worldly  skill ;  on  a  higher  plane,  a  sunny  kind- 
liness and  good  cheer  that  make  him  one  of  the 
most  genial  of  men,  a  kind  of  simple  human 
warmth  and  happiness  and  joy  ;  finally,  on  the 
highest  plane  of  all,  though  but  a  projection  of 
the  human  cheer,  an  ardent  piety,  a  whole- 
hearted faith  in  God,  an  earnest  and  yet  quite 
simple  religious  devotion.  These  are  traits  not 
exclusively  Haydnish,  so  to  speak,  as  mystical 
devotion  and  resolute  idealism  are  Beethoven- 
ish,  but  common  to  all  humanity. 

Now,  these  two  fundamental  qualities  of 
Haydn's  nature  as  a  man,  his  emotional  nor- 
mality and   his  mental  efficiency,  deserve  the 

195 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

especial  attention  we  have  been  giving  them, 
not  only  on  account  of  their  intrinsic  human 
interest,  but  also  because  they  determined  the 
quality -of  his  work  as  a  musician.  His  wide 
sympathy  with  ordinary  men,  his  practical  sense 
and  shrewdness,  his  brisk  good  cheer,  his  child- 
like and  wholly  unmetaphysical  piety — all  these 
traits  made  his  music,  in  its  expressive  aspect, 
far  more  catholic,  far  more  universal,  than  the 
austere  and  ethereal  music  of  mysticism.  At 
the  same  time,  his  practical  and  systematic  mind 
took  firm  grasp  upon  these  novel  elements  of 
expression,  and  wrought  them  into  a  clear  and 
easily  comprehensible  scheme.  He  stamped 
the  naive  and  fragmentary  utterances  of  folk- 
feeling  with  the  careful,  purposeful  orderliness 
of  art ;  and  by  so  doing,  launched  music  upon 
a  new  period  of  development. 

In  both_ his  great  tasks,  the  secularization  of 
expression  and  the  systematization  of  form, 
Haydn's  personal  faculties  were  reenforced  by 
the  general  musical  conditions  of  his  time.  At 
the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  mystical 
type  of  expression  in  music  had  not  only  ar- 
rived at  its  acme  in  Palestrina's  work,  after 
which  it  must  inevitably   decline,  but  it  had 

196 


HAYDN 

ceased  to  be  an  adequate  reflection  of  the  gen- 
eral human  attitude  toward  life.  Men  had 
turned  away  from  contemplating  the  mysteries 
of  divinity,  to  interest  themselves  more  than 
ever  before  in  the  commonest  feelings,  the  uni- 
versal experiences,  of  ordinary  human  beings. 
They  had  discovered  the  miraculousness  of  the 
commonplace,  and  learned  to  respect  themselves. 
And  they  had  consequently  begun  to  prize  as 
genuine  self-expressions  those  upwellings  of 
naive  emotion,  the  songs  and  dances  of  the  peo- 
ple, which  had  been  so  long  contemptuously 
ignored  by  academic  musicians.  These  follc- 
songs_had  none  of  the  limitations  of  the  more 
dignified,  recognized  art,  which  paid  the  price  of 
its  dignity  in  a  sacrifice  of  fullness  of  expression. 
They  voiced  not  only  what  was  edifying,  what 
was  devout  and  mystical  and  other-worldly. 
They  palpitated  with  simple  human  feeling, 
very  much  of  this  world  ;  they  were  tender, 
animated,  melancholy,  languorous,  excited, 
merry,  amorous,  even  trivial,  dull,  or  indecent 
at  times,  as  human  beings  are.  They  were  in 
fact  the  crude  but  genuine  expression  of  that 
full,  simple,  unrestricted  humanity  to  which 
idealism  had  begun  to  pin  its  faith. 
197 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

The  musicians  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
instinctively  aware  that  folk-music  somehow 
succeeded  in  voicing  a  wider  arc  of  the  full  circle 
of  feeling  than  the  conventional  ecclesiastical 
art,  applied  themselves  with  enthusiasm  to  the 
endeavor  to  assimilate  and  idealize  it,  to  turn 
the  current  of  its  pulsing  blood  into  the  torpid 
veins  of  academic  music,  at  the  same  time  refin- 
ing its  crudities  and  broadening  its  proportions. 
The  result  of  their  effort  was  the  suite,  or  series 
of  dances  and  songs,  the  most  popular  and 
prevalent  authorized  form  of  that  century.  The 
suite  was,  indeed,  in  its  degree  a  successful  em- 
bodiment of  folk-types  of  expression  in  a  form 
broad  and  dignified  enough  to  satisfy  Eesthetic 
demands.  But  it  was  not  capable  of  extended 
growth.  The  shortness  of  its  movements,  their 
over-obvious  scheme  of  phrase-balance,  their 
uniformity  of  key,  rendered  impossible  any 
great  increase  in  complexity  of  form.  Compos- 
ers therefore  found  themselves  in  a  dilemma : 
they  were  compelled  to  write  either  in  the  old 
polyphonic  style,  which  labored  under  insur- 
mountable limitations  of  expression,  or  in  the 
new  harmonic  style,  which  was  as  yet  capable 
only  of  a  rudimentary  scheme  of  form,  and 

198 


HAYDN 

therefore  unsatisfactory  to  the  sense  of  plastic 
interest  and  beauty. 

It  was  at  this  auspicious  moment  that  Haydn, 
equipped,  as  we  have  seen,  with  an  affectionate 
and  sympathetic  heart,  beating  in  unison  with 
that  of  common  humanity,  and  with  a  lucid, 
practical,  pedestrian  mind,  well-fitted  to  disen- 
tangle and  arrange  in  order  the  factors  of  a  com- 
plex problem,  appeared  in  the  arena.  The  ad- 
justment between  his  nature  and  his  circum- 
stances was  thus  peculiarly  complete.  He  found 
in  the  folk-music  of  his  native  place,  to  begin 
with,  a  type  of  emotional  expression  with  which 
he  was,  both  as  regards  qualities  and  limitations, 
in  complete  sympathy.  "  The  Croatian  melo- 
dies," says  Mr.  W.  H.  Hadow,  "  are  bright, 
sensitive,  piquant,  but  they  seldom  rise  to  any 
high  level  of  dignity  or  earnestness.  They  be- 
long to  a  temper  which  is  marked  rather  by 
feeling  and  imagination  than  by  any  sustained 
breadth  of  thought,  and  hence,  while  they  en- 
rich their  own  field  of  art  with  great  beauty,  there 
are  certain  frontiers  which  they  rarely  cross,  and 
from  which,  if  crossed,  they  soon  return." 
Could  any  better  short  description  be  devised 
of  Haydn's  own  characteristic  vein  of  sentiment 

199 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

— "  bright,  sensitive,  piquant,  but  seldom  rising 
to  any  high  level  of  dignity  or  earnestness  "  ? 
His  music  is,  in  fact,  from  the  point  of  view  of 
expression,  essentially  an  expansion,  develop- 
ment, and  idealization  of  the  characteristic  ut- 
terance of  his  race. 

On  the  other  hand,  he  had  the  mental  grasp 
necessary  to  organize  all  this  crude,  inchoate, 
fragmentary  material  into  the  finished  and  co- 
herent forms  of  art.  It  is  a  long  step  from  even 
the  most  eloquent  expressions  of  single  aspects 
of  feeling,  in  short  songs  and  dances,  to  an  ex- 
tended composition  in  which  moods  are  co- 
ordinated and  contrasted,  proportions  fitly  or- 
dered, and  unity  combined  with  broad  scope — 
a  step  which  only  intelligence  can  make.  The 
technical  task  which  faced  the  musicians  of  the 
day  was  to  find  a  scheme  of  musical  form  that 
should  knit  the  accents  of  the  popular  speech, 
in  themselves  poignant  and  thrilling  but  dis- 
jointed, fragmentary,  halting,  into  a  fluent  and 
rational  utterance.  Sir  Hubert  Parry  explains 
the  situation  as  follows :  "  What  Haydn  had 
to  build  upon,  and  what  was  most  congenial  to 
him  through  his  origin  and  circumstances,  was 
the  native  people's  songs  and  dances,  which  be- 


H  A  YD  N 

long  to  the  same  order  of  art  in  point  of  struc- 
ture as  symphonies  and  sonatas ;  and  what  he 
wanted,  and  what  all  men  who  aimed  in  the 
same  direction  wanted,  was  to  know  how  to 
make  this  kind  of  music  on  a  grander  scale. 
The  older  music  of  Handel  and  Bach  leaned 
too  much  towards  the  style  of  the  choral  music 
and  organ  music  of  the  church  to  serve  him  as 
a  model.  For  the  principle  upon  which  their  art 
was  mainly  built  was  the  treatment  of  the  sepa- 
rate parts.  In  the  modern  style  the  artistic  prin- 
ciple upon  which  music  is  mainly  based  is  the 
treatment  of  harmonies  and  keys,  and  the  way  in 
which  those  harmonies  and  keys  are  arranged. 
In  national  dances  few  harmonies  are  used,  but 
they  are  arranged  on  the  same  principles  as  the 
harmonies  of  a  sonata  or  a  symphony ;  and 
what  had  to  be  found  out  in  order  to  make 
grand  instrumental  works  was  how  to  arrange 
many  more  harmonies  with  the  same  effect  of 
unity  as  is  obtained  on  a  small  scale  in  dances 
and  national  songs."  Here  again,  happily,  the 
historic  moment  was  favorable  to  Haydn. 
Many  tentative  efforts  toward  a  new  method 
of  musical  structure,  based  on  an  organized 
contrast  of  themes  and  keys,  had  been  made ; 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

and  all  that  was  needed  to  weld  them  into  a 
style  as  firm  and  clear  as  it  was  novel  and  in- 
teresting was  systematization  by  an  orderly, 
responsible,  and  efficient  mind.  Haydn  had 
such  a  mind  ;  and  he  established  sonata-form 
on  a  permanent  basis. 

In  this  great  task  he  was  helped  by  study  of 
the  experiments  in  the  new  or  secular  music 
already  made  by  such  men  as  Carl  Philip 
Emanuel  Bach,*  a  son  of  the  great  Sebastian, 
who  struck  into  paths  very  different  from  the 
contrapuntal  ones  of  his  father  ;  he  was  helped 
by  the  intrinsic  principles  of  structure  of  the 
songs  and  dances  themselves,  which  made  up 
his  musical  material ;  but  above  all  he  was 
helped  by  the  bias  of  his  own  mind,  practical 
and  business-like.  It  hardly  needs  demonstra- 
tion that  in  the  initiatory  period  of  an  art-form 
the  chief  desideratum  is  clearness,  simplicity,  a 
clean,  concise  treatment  which  subordinates  all 
details  to  the  salient  features  of  the  construc- 

*  Haydn  on  C.  P.  E.  Bach  :  "Those  who  know  me  well 
must  be  aware  that  I  owe  very  much  to  Emanuel  Bach,  whose 
works  I  understand  and  have  thoroughly  studied."  C.  P.  E. 
Bach  on  Haydn  :  "He  alone  has  thoroughly  comprehended 
my  works,  and  made  a  proper  use  of  them." 


HAY  DN 

tion,  and  foregoes  variety  rather  than  endanger 
unity.  Haydn's  temperamental  make-up,  the 
almost  child-like  directness  of  his  intellect,  en- 
sured his  fitting  treatment  of  an  art  itself  just 
emerging  from  infancy^] 

The  procedure  of  Haydn,  then,  in  his  treat- 
ment of  the  problems  of  form,  or  the  shaping  of 
his  material,  was  chiefly  notable  for  simplicity, 
directness,  shrewd  adaptation  of  means  to  ends. 
He  was  not  a  lover  of  the  subtle,  the  recondite  ; 
he  went  straight  to  his  mark,  economized  his 
resources,  prized  ready  intelligibility  beyond  all 
other  qualities.  This  appears,  first,  in  his  ini- 
tial motifs  or  melodic  germs  ;  and  second  in  his 
methods  of  building  them  up  into  larger  artistic 
organisms.  Look  at  the  motifs  of  his  "  Surprise 
Symphony,"  for  example,  noting  their  metrical 
vigor  and  their  harmonic  simplicity,  particularly 
in  the  two  middle  movements.  The  meter  of 
the  Andante  is  the  baldest  combination  of 
eighth-notes  and  quarter-notes,  like  that  of  the 
tunes  children  pick  out  on  the  piano  ;  its  har- 
mony is  tonic,  sub-dominant,  dominant,  tonic 
again,  and  the  inevitable  modulation  to  the  dom- 
inant, and  so  on.  The  Minuet  is  a  rollicking, 
waltz-like  tune,  seesawing  happily  about  from 

203 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

tonic  to  dominant,  with  some  simple  modula- 
tions for  variety's  sake.  Haydn  wrote  thousands 
of  such  motifs,  all  vigorous,  incisive,  and  utterly 
simple. 

When  we  pass  from  considering  the  texture 
or  molecular  tissue  of  the  music  to  an  examin- 
ation of  its  structure,  or  composition,  the  same 
qualities  continue  to  impress  us.  There  is  a  con- 
stant dearth  of  contrast,  a  constant  simplicity  that 
to  modern  ears,  it  may  be,  seems  like  over-sim- 
plicity. The  motifs,  for  example,  are  generally 
expanded  into  complete  phrases  by  the  addition 
of  more  or  less  homogeneous  or  amorphous  mat- 
ter, rather  than  by  the  entrance  of  new  motifs  or 
figures,  such  as  Mozart  often,  and  Beethoven  gen- 
erally, uses.  The  schemes  of  balance  between 
the  phrases  are  generally  obvious  and  mathemat- 
ically exact,  four  measures  answering  four,  or 
eight,  eight ;  whereas  in  Beethoven,  and  even  in 
Mozart,  the  phrase-balance  is  much  more  sub- 
tle and  various.  The  transitional  passages  lead- 
ing from  one  theme  to  another  are  so  perfunc- 
tory, so  conventional,  that  Wagner  felicitously 
compared  them  to  "  the  clattering  of  dishes  at 
a  royal  feast."  The  themes  themselves,  too,  are 
often  but  slightly  contrasted  in  character  and 

304 


HAYDN 

style  ;  instead  of  setting  a  dreamy  or  emotional 
second  theme  over  against  a  sprightly  or  dash- 
ing first  theme,  Haydn  is  apt  to  make  the  sec- 
ond hardly  more  than  a  variation  of  the  first. 
In  the  development  portions  of  his  first  move- 
ments, again,  where  the  logical  power  and  ingen- 
uity of  the  composer  is  of  course  most  sorely 
taxed,  Haydn  is  apt  to  resort  to  only  the  more 
obvious  means  of  exploiting  his  subjects,  to  re- 
present them  literally,  with  merely  a  new  figure 
of  accompaniment,  or  to  change  a  major  theme 
to  minor,  or  vice  versa,  instead  of  drawing  forth 
their  latent  but  at  first  sight  hidden  possibilities. 
He  avoids  radical  transformations,  either  of  har- 
mony or  rhythm.  To  put  the  matter  in  the  most 
general  terms,  he  is  more  spontaneous  than 
thoughtful,  more  vivacious  than  logical,  more 
bent  on  securing  perfect  transparency  for  his  to- 
nal web  than  on  filling  it  with  iridescent  colors, 
tempting  opacities,  charming  labyrinths  of  light 
and  shade.  We  must  remember,  however,  that 
Haydn  was  writing  for  people  to  whom  the  whole 
scheme  of  thematic  form  was  unfamiliar.  His  in- 
genuity was  taxed  to  be  as  regular  as  possible, 
rather  than  to  introduce  attractive  irregularities. 
He  was,  in  fact,  laying  down  the  first  principles 
205 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

of  a  novel  type  of  art ;  and  it  is  the  supreme  vir- 
tue of  first  principles  to  be  simple,  fundamental, 
unmistakable. 

Our  interest  in  defining  Haydn's  general  ar- 
tistic function  as  that  of  a  pioneer,  a  systematizer 
and  law-giver,  must  not  blind  our  eyes,  how- 
ever, to  his  strokes  of  originality.  In  an  occa- 
sional daring  modulation,  happy  irregularity,  or 
nicely-calculated  blurring  of  outline,  Haydn  an- 
ticipates some  of  Beethoven's  most  characteris- 
tic effects.  In  the  Minuet  of  his  Ninth  Sym- 
phony,* for  example,  there  are  some  charming 
instances  of  "  shifted  rhythm  "  ;  and  in  that  of 
the  Eighth  he  revels  in  odd  rhythmical  surprises 
with  a  truly  Beethoven-like  elfishness.  As  for 
the  matter  of  harmonic  ingenuity,  the  instances 
are  bewilderingly  numerous.  Two  or  three  of 
the  most  striking  may,  however,  be  mentioned, 
and  the  rest  left  to  the  reader's  own  research. 
In  the  introduction  of  the  Third  Symphony,  in 
E-flat,  Haydn  makes  a  most  interesting  enhar- 
monic change  from  C-flat  to  B-natural,  quite  in 
the  Beethoven  manner,  plunging  the  hearer  into 
a  mystification  that  clears  up  only  with  the  re- 

*  The  numbering  here  refers  only  to  the  twelve  great  sym- 
phonies written  for  Salomon. 

206 


HAYDN 

turn,  after  a  few  measures,  to  the  key  of  C-minor, 
the  relative  of  the  original  key.  The  Introduc- 
tion of  the  Fifth  Symphony  contains  similar  in- 
genious modulations.  But  the  most  Beethov- 
enish  trick  of  all  is  perhaps  the  modulation  back 
to  the  last  entrance  of  the  main  theme  of  the 
Finale  of  this  same  symphony.  The  key  of  the 
movement  is  D-major  ;  Haydn,  however,  get- 
ting himself  well  established  in  F-sharp  minor, 
harps  on  C-sharp  as  the  dominant  of  this  dis- 
tant key ;  many  C-sharps  are  heard,  in  a  per- 
sistent rhythm  of  two  shorts  and  a  long,  until 
one  has  forgotten  all  about  the  original  key  of 
the  piece  ;  the  C-sharps  fade  away  to  piano,  then 
to  pianissimo,  then  to  silence  ;  when  suddenly, 
in  the  same  rhythm,  three  loud  D's  bring  the 
piece  emphatically  back  to  the  home  key,  and 
forthwith  it  proceeds  merrily  upon  its  way.  This 
device  is  surprisingly  unlike  Haydn  in  his  usual 
jog-trot  mood  ;  it  is  amazingly  like  the  daring 
strokes  of  his  great  successor.  The  C-sharp  is 
drummed  into  us  until  we  take  it  for  granted, 
and  conceive  it  wholly  as  the  dominant  of 
F-sharp-minor ;  and  then  by  his  sudden 
blast  of  D's  the  composer  shows  us  that  he 
had  after  all  decided  to  consider  it  the  lead- 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

ing-note    of  the    home    key — and    therewith, 
home  we  are ! 

But  in  spite  of  some  striking  anticipations  of 
later  effects,  Haydn  is  for  the  most  part,  and  in 
the  long  run,  a  true  child  of  his  own  epoch,  writ- 
ingwith  its  concernfor  clearness  of  form,itssome- 
what  gingerly  treatment  of  contrast,  its  quaint, 
old-fashioned,  and  yet  awakened  spirit.  He  as- 
similated the  best  capacities  of  music  as  he  found 
them,  and  by  dint  of  his  skill  and  perseverance, 
moulded  them  until  they  issued  forth  in  what 
was  to  all  intents  and  purposes  a  new  art.  But 
the  novelty  in  this  art  was  not  the  novelty  of  a 
new  vision,  a  new  character,  a  new  personal  ideal; 
it  was  the  novelty  of  a  more  perfect  adjustment 
than  had  yet  been  achieved  of  expressive  im- 
pulses and  formal  principles  already  widely  dis- 
seminated. Haydn's  great  achievement  was  the 
development  of  popular  types  of  expression  into 
a  true  art  by  the  application  to  them  of  schemes 
of  design,  or  form,  which  in  his  day  had  just 
become  possible  for  the  first  time  as  a  result  of 
the  pioneer  work  in  harmonic  and  rhythmic  or- 
ganization done  by  his  immediate  predecessors. 
Lacking  either  of  these  two  constituents,  Haydn's 
art  could  not  have  existed  ;  and  coming  into  be- 

ao8 


HAYDN 

ing  as  a  resultant  of  both,  it  had  qualities  of  its 
own,  different  from  those  of  either  one  of  its 
factors  alone.  It  marked,  indeed,  the  beginning 
of  secular  music  as  a  mature  art. 

The  final  emphasis  in  any  definition  of  Haydn's 
qualities,  whether  of  expression  or  of  form,  de- 
pends on  the  point  of  view  from  which  it  is  made, 
on  whether  he  is  considered  as  a  follower  of  Pa- 
lestrinaor  as  a  forerunner  of  Beethoven.  In  com- 
parison with  Palestrina  he  is  a  modern.  In  com- 
mon with  his  immediate  predecessors,  but  more 
fully  and  definitely  than  any  of  them,  he  turns 
away  from  the  ecclesiastical  inspiration  and  the 
contrapuntal  forms  of  the  sixteenth  century,  to 
establish  himself  solidly  on  the  untrammeled  ex- 
pression of  universal  human  feeling,  through 
forms  based  on  harmonic  and  rhythmic  princi- 
ples. He  sacrifices  the  dignity,  the  peace,  the 
detachment,  of  Palestrina,  in  order  to  voice  the 
self-consciousness,  the  mobile  vitality,  the  turbu- 
lence and  struggle  and  ebullient  life  of  the  mod- 
ern man.  For  this  reason,  as  well  as  because  of 
the  forms  he  uses,  he  is  "  the  first  of  secular 
composers,"  "  the  father  of  instrumental  music." 
Yet  he  is  not  free  as  Beethoven  is  free,  nor  is 
his  individualism  the  fierce  nonconformity  of  the 
209 


BEETHOVEN  AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

great  anarch  of  outworn  conventions  and  restrict- 
ing formulae.  His  methods,  compared  with  Bee- 
thoven's, are  rigid,  narrow,  inelastic  ;  the  music 
they  shaped  had  something  of  the  angular  out- 
line of  all  childlike  art.  Had  it  not  been  for  their 
regularity,  however,  Beethoven's  felicitous  daring 
would  have  miscarried  ;  without  their  order  as  a 
point  of  departure,  his  "  splendid  experiments  " 
would  have  led,  not  to  freedom,  but  to  chaos. 
Mozart's  playful  nickname  of  "Papa  Haydn  " 
is  more  than  a  term  of  endearment ;  it  is  a  con- 
densed philosophy.  Haydn  was  indeed  the 
father  of  instrumental  composers,  in  this  sense  : 
that  he  laid  the  foundation  for  all  their  perform- 
ance, and  that  they  made  the  advances,  in  the 
light  of  which  he  appears  old-fashioned,  only  by 
a  wise  use  of  resources  inherited  from  him. 


CHAPTER    VJL 
MOZART 


CHAPTER     VI 
MOZART 


LTHOUGH  Mozart,  born 
twenty-four  years  later  than 
Haydn,  and  therefore  belong- 
ing to  another  generation,  was 
under  heavy  obligations  to  his 
forerunner  for  technical  resources  and  models 
of  style,  his  disadvantage  in  years  was  so  much 
more  than  cancelled  by  the  superior  brightness 
of  his  genius  that  he  in  his  turn  was  able  to  ex- 
ert a  potent  influence  upon  the  older  man.  The 
two  great  predecessors  of  Beethoven,  accord- 
ingly, can  be  understood  only  when  they  are 
considered  as  subject  to  mutual  influences,  as 
supplementing  each  other  through  a  delicate 
play  of  action  and  reaction.  Haydn  led  the 
way  into  the  terra  incognita,  did  the  rough  work 
of  clearing  the  ground,  but  it  was  Mozart  who 
turned  the  wilderness  into  a  garden.    The  chief 

113 


BEETHOVEN      AND     HIS     FORERUNNERS 

dates  of  the  two  careers  indicate  concisely  their 
interaction.  Haydn  was  born  in  1732,  Mozart 
in  1756;  yet  Haydn,  although  he  began  writ- 
ing symphonies  as  early  as  1759,  when  Mozart 
was  but  four  years  old,  wrote  none  that  can 
compare  with  the  younger  man's  until  1 791,  or 
after  Mozart  had  written  his  three  great  sym- 
phonies of  1788.  As  with  the  symphony,  so  it 
was  with  the  string  quartet.  Haydn  opened 
up  the  way,  but  Mozart,  outrunning  him,  be- 
came eventually  the  leader.  It  was  a  sort  of 
hare  and  tortoise  race  in  which,  to  the  confusion 
of  morality,  the  hare  won. 

Both  circumstances  and  endowment  fitted 
Mozart,  in  this  case,  for  the  role  of  hare.  The 
son  of  a  professional  musician,  who  wisely  di- 
rected his  early  studies,  and  opened  to  him  in 
his  impressionable  years  all  the  advantages  of 
companionship  with  musicians  and  with  people 
of  general  cultivation,  he  came  by  good  fortune 
into  immediate  possession  of  all  the  favoring 
conditions  that  Haydn  had  to  struggle  up  to 
through  years  of  poverty,  neglect,  and  hard  la- 
bor. It  would  be  hard  to  imagine  more  dis- 
similar lots  in  life.  The  contrast  between  the 
two  men  thus  externally  induced  was  accentu- 

«4 


MOZART 


ated  by  their  opposite  characters.  Haydn,  as 
we  have  seen,  was  an  intensely  human  person, 
full  of  sympathy  for  the  ordinary  and  yet  al- 
ways appealing  emotions  of  common  humanity, 
and  looking  at  music  largely  as  a  means  for 
their  expression.  Mozart,  on  the  contrary,  was 
an  artist  pure  and  simple.  His  genius  was  al- 
most completely  independent  of  his  character, 
and  it  was  by  virtue  of  the  former  that  he  was 
great.  His  sensitiveness  to  the  minutest  dis- 
tinctions and  gradations  in  sound,  his  unerring 
instinct  for  perfection  in  form,  in  the  smallest 
as  in  the  largest  instances,  his  wonderful  power 
to  shape  a  multitude  of  details  into  a  breathing 
organism,  his  Greek  serenity  of  temper  and  in- 
difference to  ranges  of  feeling  that  might  per- 
turb his  art — all  these  things  gave  him  an  in- 
calculable advantage  over  the  plodding  Haydn 
as  a  master  of  the  purely  artistic  side  of  musical 
composition.  They  enabled  him  to  assimilate 
instantaneously  all  that  the  older  man  had  to 
teach  him  of  design,  and  to  become  his  teacher 
before  he  had  done  with  learning  from  him. 
Haydn  showed  Mozart  how  to  do  things ;  and 
in  return  Mozart  showed  Haydn  how  to  do 
them  better. 


BEETHOVEN      AND     HIS      FORERUNNERS 

Both  men  were  clearly  aware  of  their  obliga- 
tions to  each  other.  In  the  midst  of  the  petty 
jealousies  and  the  malicious  efforts  to  stir  up 
ill-feeling  which  characterized  musical  Vienna 
in  their  day,  they  remained  warm  friends  and 
mutual  admirers.  Mozart  dedicated  his  six 
finest  string  quartets  to  Haydn,  with  the  com- 
ment :  "  It  was  due  from  me,  for  it  was  from 
Haydn  that  I  learned  how  quartets  should  be 
written."  "  It  was  affecting,"  says  a  contem- 
porary observer,  "  to  hear  him  speak  of  the  two 
Haydns  or  any  other  of  the  great  masters ;  one 
would  have  imagined  him  to  be  one  of  their  en- 
thusiastic pupils  rather  than  the  all-powerful 
Mozart."  Haydn's  respect  for  Mozart  was 
equally  profound,  and  even  more  creditable,  in 
that  he  was  older  and  less  appreciated  by  the 
Viennese  public  than  the  man  he  lost  no  op- 
portunity to  praise.  He  often  asserted  that  he 
never  heard  one  of  Mozart's  compositions  with- 
out learning  something  from  it ;  and  once  when 
"  Don  Giovanni  "  was  being  discussed  he  made 
a  period  to  the  argument  by  saying :  "  I  can- 
not decide  the  questions  in  dispute,  but  this  I 
know,  that  Mozart  is  the  greatest  composer  in 
the  world."     Mozart  was  thus  much  more  than 

zi6 


MOZART 


a  mere  successor  of  Haydn  in  the  usual  course 
of  musical  evolution  ;  he  gave  fully  as  much  as 
he  received.  His  short  though  full  life,  more- 
over, came  to  an  end  eighteen  years  before 
Haydn's  more  leisurely  one  ;  so  that  in  a  purely 
human  as  well  as  an  artistic  sense,  we  can  look 
upon  him,  in  relation  to  Haydn,  as  a  sort  of  bril- 
liant younger  brother. 

Johann  Chrysostum  Wolfgang  Theophilus 
Mozart,  generally  known  to  the  world  as  Wolf- 
gang Amadeus  *  Mozart,  was  born  at  Salzburg, 
a  small  town  southwest  of  Vienna,  in  Austria- 
Hungary,  on  January  27,  1756.  His  father 
was  Leopold  Mozart,  a  professional  musician 
of  excellent  abilities,  court-composer  to  the 
Archbishop  of  Salzburg,  and  author  of  a  School 
for  the  Violin  which  in  its  day  was  known 
throughout  Europe.  He  was  a  devoted  father, 
and  although  there  has  been  some  difference  of 
opinion  as  to  his  character,  it  is  certain  that  he 
spared  no  pains  in  the  education  of  his  son, 
which  he  considered  the  chief  business  of  his 
life.  He  has  been  charged  with  penuriousness, 
with  narrowness  and   bigotry,  and  with  having 

*Amadeus  is  the  Latin  form  of  the  Greek  name  Theophilus. 
The  German  form,  Gottlieb,  was  also  sometimes  used. 

217 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS  FORERUNNERS 


forced  his  son  to  be  a  prodigy  for  the  sake  of 
gain  ;  but  there  is  no  evidence  that  he  ever  acted 
unconscientiously,  and  the  very  thoroughness 
and  almost  mechanical  regularity  of  the  train- 
ing he  gave  Wolfgang  were  invaluable  in  laying 
the  foundations  of  his  remarkable  technique. 

Under  his  father's  careful  tutelage  the  young 
Wolfgang,  together  with  his  sister  Maria  Anna, 
who  was  almost  equally  precocious,  advanced 
rapidly  in  music.  When  he  was  but  three  he 
picked  out  simple  chords  at  the  piano  ;  at  four 
he  played  minuets  and  other  short  pieces ;  and 
at  five  he  composed  them.  His  early  compo- 
sitions were  carefully  copied  out  in  a  sketch- 
book, at  first  by  his  father  and  later  by  himself, 
and  dated ;  so  that  we  have  documentary  evi- 
dence that  they  were  actually  written  by  him 
at  an  almost  incredibly  early  age.  The  first, 
dictated  when  he  was  five  years  old,  is  a  Minuet 
and  Trio. 

Figure  XIV.    Mozart's  First  Composition.     Minuet,  with  Trio. 


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219 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 


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Minuet  da  Capo. 

In  this  childlike  but  well-organized  piece  is 
shown  already  a  perfect  mastery  of  the  simple 
three-part  song-form  which  is,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  structural  embryo  of  the  sonata.  Both  min- 
uet and  trio  consist  of  (a)  an  eight-measure  sen- 
tence, cadencing  in  the  dominant,  or  contrasted 

XIO 


MOZART 

tonal  centre,  (b)  a  four-measure  clause  of  con- 
trast, and  (c)  a  four-measure  clause  echoing  the 
last  half  of  the  first  sentence,  and  closing  in  the 
home-key.  Thus  both  halves  of  the  piece,  and 
the  entire  piece,  as  a  whole,  illustrate  the  fund- 
amental principles  of  musical  design  in  a  very 
consummate  way.  All  this,  however,  Mozart 
might  have  done  simply  by  careful  observation 
and  imitation  of  methods  familiar  to  all  contem- 
porary composers.  What  is  therefore  even  more 
remarkable  in  such  early  work  is  the  variety  of 
detail  that  he  manages  to  introduce.  In  view 
of  the  fact,  which  we  shall  later  find  very  signif- 
icant, that  his  skill  as  an  artist  lay  largely  in  his 
command  over  variety  of  effect  (while  Haydn's 
consisted  more  in  the  salient  unity  of  his  com- 
position), it  is  exceedingly  interesting  to  note 
that,  at  five  years  old,  Mozart  uses  so  complex 
a  device  as  shifted  rhythm*  in  the  manipulation 
of  his  motif.  In  the  fifth  measure  of  the  min- 
uet, namely,  he  writes  his  motif  on  the  second 
and  third  beats,  thus  producing  a  very  charm- 
ing effect  of  cross-accentuation.  It  is  also  no- 
ticeable that  in  so  short  a  piece  as  this  we  find 
triplets  (measures  7  and  1 5)  and  groups  of  six- 

*  See  page  147. 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

teenth  notes  (in  the  trio),  obviously  introduced 
for  the  sake  of  rhythmic  diversity. 

Even  greater  ingenuity,  of  a  similar  sort,  is 
shown  in  a  piece  which  he  composed  in  March, 
1762.     The  theme  runs  like  this : 


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How   many   composers,  whether  aged   six  or 
sixty,  would  have  spontaneously  thought  of  so 


M  OZAR  T 

charming  an  arrangement  of  the  phrases,  which 
we  may  symbolize  with  the  letters  A  B  B  A  C  C  ? 
Most  minds  would  have  traveled  the  old  time- 
honored  rut,  writing  A  B  A  B  in  something 
like  this  fashion  : 


But  Mozart  knew  how  to  compose.  Nor  does 
his  ingenuity  fail  him  when  in  the  last  section 
of  the  piece  he  wishes,  while  repeating  the  es- 
sence of  his  idea,  to  reach  the  tonic  instead  of 
the  dominant  key.  Simply  dropping  out  the 
second  A-phrase,  he  writes : 


Figure  XVII. 
Hti  0i   *> _    i     N 


£23 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

and  the  trick  is  done.  It  was  by  a  steadily 
broader  application  of  principles  such  as  are  here 
illustrated  that  he  gradually  became  so  marvel- 
ously  skilful  in  composition. 

Concerning  the  extraordinary  physical  deli- 
cacy of  the  young  Mozart's  ear  there  are  many 
stories,  some  of  which  are  probably  true.  He 
is  said  to  have  fainted  on  hearing  a  trumpet. 
According  to  Schachtner,  an  intimate  friend  of 
the  Mozarts,  he  was  able  to  perceive  an  inter- 
val of  pitch  so  small  as  the  eighth  of  a  tone.  The 
story  is  that  Wolfgang  was  allowed  to  play  one 
day  on  Schachtner's  violin,  which  he  called,  on 
account  of  its  full,  rich  tone,  "  Butter-fiddle." 
"  Herr  Schachtner,"  he  announced  a  few  days 
later,  "  your  violin  is  half  a  quarter  of  a  tone 
lower  than  mine  ;  that  is,  if  it  is  tuned  as  it  was 
when  I  played  it  last."  The  violin  was  brought 
out,  and  proved,  Schachtner  says,  to  be  pitched 
as  the  boy  had  stated.  As  Schachtner,  trained  in 
literature  by  Jesuits,  had  the  literary  man's  in- 
stinct for  effective  statement,  it  is  necessary  to 
discount  such  tales  a  little;  but  the  extraordinary 
delicacy  of  Mozart's  ear  is  sufficiently  proved. 
For  that  matter,  it  needs  no  proof;  so  keen  a 
sense  of  design  would  have  been  impossible  to 

224 


MOZART 

him  had  he  lacked  the  requisite  physical  basis 
of  accurate  perception  and  discrimination  of 
tones. 

The  first  twenty-five  years  of  Mozart's  life 
were  spent  largely  in  professional  tours,  as 
a  piano  virtuoso,  with  intermittent  periods  at 
home  in  Salzburg  devoted  to  study  and  compo- 
sition. Appearing  as  a  boy-prodigy  when  he  was 
only  six  years  old,  before  he  was  twenty-five  he 
had  made  five  extended  and  uniformly  success- 
ful tours.  He  appeared  in  most  of  the  larger 
German  and  Italian  cities, as  well  as  in  Brussels, 
Amsterdam,  Paris, and  London,  everywhere  giv- 
ing new  proofs  of  the  quickness,  elasticity,  and 
certainty  of  his  musical  powers.  In  Paris,  when 
eight  years  old,  he  "  accompanied  a  lady  in  an 
Italian  air  without  seeing  the  music,  supplying 
the  harmony  for  the  passage  which  was  to  fol- 
low from  that  which  he  had  just  heard.  This 
could  not  be  done  without  some  mistakes,  but 
when  the  song  was  ended  he  begged  the  lady 
to  sing  it  again,  played  the  accompaniment  and 
the  melody  itself  with  perfect  correctness,  and 
repeated  it  ten  times,  altering  the  character  of 
the  accompaniment  for  each."  *     "On  a  melody 

♦Jahn's  Life  of  Mozart,  English  trans.,  L,  37. 
125 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

being  dictated  to  him,  he  supplied  the  bass  and 
the  parts  without  using  the  clavier  at  all."*  In 
Rome,  when  fourteen  years  old,  after  hearing 
Allegri's  Miserere  sung  in  the  Papal  chapel  by 
a  nine-part  chorus,  he  went  home  and  copied 
out  from  memory  the  entire  work.  A  few  mis- 
takes were  corrected  after  a  second  hearing.  Such 
feats  as  this  bespeak  a  mastery  of  the  technique 
of  pure  music  even  more  remarkable,  and  far 
more  important,  than  his  so  much  talked  of  skill 
as  a  performer  on  the  piano,  organ,  and  violin. 
Had  music"  not  become  to  him  in  early  youth 
a  natural  language,  a  second  mother-tongue,  he 
could  never  have  learned,  in  his  manhood,  to 
manipulate  it  with  such  extraordinary  freedom, 
ingenuity,  and  power. 

In  the  intervals  of  his  travels,  Mozart  had  to 
spend  his  time  in  Salzburg,  a  town  almost  in- 
tolerably uncongenial.  It  was  a  dull,  provincial 
place,  the  butt  of  innumerable  sarcasms.  There 
was  a  saying :  "  He  who  comes  to  Salzburg  be- 
comes in  the  first  year  stupid,  in  the  second  idi- 
otic, and  in  the  third  a  true  Salzburger ; "  and 
Mozart,  in  whom  taste  and  experience  wrought 
together    to   make   provincialism    odious,  was 

*  Jahn's  Life  of  Mozart,  English  trans.,  I.,  37, 

Z26 


MOZART 

never  tired  of  telling  of  a  Salzburgian  who  com- 
plained that  he  could  not  judge  Paris  satisfac- 
torily, "  as  the  houses  were  too  high  and  shut  off 
the  horizon."  "  I  detest  Salzburg  and  every- 
thing that  is  born  in  it,"  he  wrote ;  "  the  tone 
and  the  manners  of  the  people  are  utterly  in- 
supportable." Such  a  place  would  have  been 
distasteful  enough  to  the  gay  and  highly  social 
temperament  of  Mozart  even  had  he  had  no  re- 
sponsibilities there ;  but  it  was  his  position  of 
music-director  to  the  Archbishop  of  Salzburg, 
with  the  dependence  it  involved,  that  finally  ex- 
hausted his  patience.  Hieronymus,  who  became 
Archbishop  in  1772,  was  a  man  famed  for  his 
churlishness  and  arrogant,  bullying  ways.  He 
made  his  poor  music-director's  life  a  burden  ; 
he  treated  him  as  a  hireling,  made  him  eat  with  the 
servants,  and  called  him  contemptuous  names, 
such  as  "Fex,"  "Lump,"  "  Lausbube."  Mo- 
zart, driven  to  desperation,  finally  applied  for 
his  discharge.  Receiving  no  attention,  he  went 
in  person  to  press  the  matter,  and  was  then  act- 
ually thrown  from  the  Archbishop's  ante-room 
by  a  petty  official.  This  insult  marked  the  end 
of  his  galling  relation  with  his  patron.  From 
178 1  until  his  death  he  lived  in  Vienna,  pick- 

227 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

ing  up  a  scanty  livelihood  by  teaching  and  giv- 
ing concerts. 

His  situation,  after  this  open  rupture  with 
the  system  of  patronage  which  was  the  only 
solid  dependence  of  the  eighteenth-century 
composer,  was  most  precarious.  The  Viennese 
public  was  notoriously  fickle  towards  even  the 
most  popular  pianists  and  teachers,  while  the 
number  of  educated  people  who  could  be  de- 
pended upon  to  buy  serious  compositions  was 
small,  and  publishers  were  consequently  unable 
to  pay  composers  so  well  as  they  could  in 
Beethoven's  day.  To  make  matters  worse, 
Mozart  was  careless  in  money  affairs,  luxurious 
in  his  tastes,  and  so  weakly  amiable  that  he 
would  at  any  time  give  a  friend  his  last  kreut- 
zer.  We  cannot,  then,  be  surprised  that  when 
Leopold  Mozart,  who  was  naturally  cautious, 
conservative,  and  worldly,  heard  that  his  son 
had  taken  lodgings  with  a  certain  Madame 
Weber,  in  Vienna,  and  fallen  in  love  with  her 
daughter  Constanze,  he  summarily  commanded 
him  to  break  off  the  affair.  Mozart  respect- 
fully but  firmly  refused  to  deprive  Constanze, 
whose  position  in  the  house  of  her  shiftless  and 
half-drunken  mother  had  aroused  his  pity,  of 

m8 


'    MOZART 


the  benefit  of  his  friendship  ;  and  as  his  father 
had  foreseen,  this  friendship  rapidly  deepened 
into  love. 

Leopold  Mozart  for  a  long  time  stubbornly 
withheld  his  consent  to  the  marriage ;  but  at 
last,  overborne  by  his  son's  persistence  and  by 
the  intercession  of  friends,  he  gave  the  pair  a 
reluctant  blessing.  They  were  married  August 
4,  1782.  The  sequel  proved  that  both  father 
and  son  were  justified  in  their  opinions.  The 
Mozart  menage  was  truly  most  erratic.  Hus- 
band and  wife  were  equally  improvident  and 
unmethodical.  They  were  always  poor,  fre- 
quently in  actual  want.  On  the  other  hand,  as 
Wolfgang  had  hoped,  Constanze's  virtues  as  a 
comrade  compensated  for  her  deficiencies  as  a 
housekeeper,  and  their  congeniality  of  temper- 
ament made  them  contented  in  the  midst  of 
disorder,  poverty,  and  care.  There  is  a  story 
that  a  friend,  calling  on  them  one  cold  winter 
morning,  found  them  waltzing  together,  and 
was  told  that,  as  they  had  no  fuel,  they  were 
keeping  warm  in  that  way.  The  incident  is  typi- 
cal of  their  existence — irresponsible,  haphazard, 
and  yet  on  the  whole  happy. 

The  remaining  events  of  Mozart's  short  life, 
229 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

from  his  marriage  in  1782  to  his  death  in  1791, 
were  all  artistic  events — works  composed — 
standing  out  luminous  against  a  dark  back- 
ground of  poverty,  struggle,  and  pain.  His 
three  great  operas  were  written  during  this  time. 
"  The  Marriage  of  Figaro  "  was  first  produced 
at  Vienna  in  1786  ;  "  Don  Giovanni "  at  Prague, 
in  1787;  and  "The  Magic  Flute"  at  Vienna, 
in  the  year  of  Mozart's  death.  In  the  realm 
of  absolute  music  Mozart  was  equally  produc- 
tive all  through  this  period.  The  six  great 
string  quartets  dedicated  to  Haydn  date  from 
1782,  1783,  and  1784.  The  three  quartets 
written  for  Frederick  William  II  of  Prussia 
were  composed  in  the  spring  of  1790.  The  four 
greatest  string  quintets  were  written  in   1787, 

1790,  and  1 79 1.  Finally,  the  three  finest  and 
maturest  symphonies,  works  which  will  endure 
as  long  as  music  does,  were  all  written  within 
two  months  in  the  summer  of  1788.  His  last 
work  was  the  famous  Requiem,  begun  in  July, 

1 79 1.  His  strong  constitution  was  now  begin- 
ning to  give  way  under  the  long  strain  of  pov- 
erty and  unceasing  mental  labor,  and  he  gradu- 
ally became  haunted  by  the  idea  that  he  was 
writing  this  Requiem  for  himself.       He  grew 

S30 


MOZART 

morbid  and  gloomy,  but  continued  to  work  with 
feverish  energy.  The  last  evening  of  his  life 
he  looked  at  his  unfinished  score  with  tears  in 
his  eyes,  saying,  "  Did  I  not  say  I  was  writing 
the  Requiem  for  myself?  "  And  later,  when 
he  became  delirious,  he  was  still  busy  with  the 
Requiem,  imagining  it  played,  and  blowing  out 
his  cheeks  to  imitate  the  trumpets.  He  died 
quietly  on  the  evening  of  December  5,  1791, 
having  accomplished  an  enduring  work  in 
thirty-five  laborious,  brilliant,  and  painful 
years. 

This  story  of  Mozart's  last  ten  years  is  un- 
doubtedly one  of  the  strangest  pages  of  musical 
biography.  The  contrast  between  his  external 
and  his  internal  life  is  so  violent,  so  startling, 
that  we  rub  our  eyes  involuntarily,  wondering 
if  the  facts  as  we  know  them  can  be  true.  And 
indeed  we  can  believe  in  them  only  when  we 
assume  that  his  mind  was  independent  of  its 
environment  to  a  degree  uncommon  even  with 
genius.  Mozart  seems  to  have  been  a  dual 
person,  to  have  lived  two  lives  at  once ;  out- 
wardly hounded  by  creditors,  worn  with  the 
most  prostrating  and  debasing  anxiety,  forget- 
ting his  cares  only  in  a  dissipation  that  was  as 
131 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

squalid  as  they,  he  was  all  the  time  pursuing 
his  artistic  ideals  with  the  highest  success,  and 
with  the  serenity  of  complete  mastership.  Jn 
his  nature  it  was  not  even  a  step  from  the  ridic- 
ulous to  the  sublime — the  two  extremes  coex- 
isted and  interlaced. 

The  case  of  Mozart  is  in  fact  an  eloquent 
human  proof  of  the  truth  of  Schopenhauer's 
theory  that  pure  music  is  a  world  by  itself,  par- 
allel with  the  actual  world  of  ordinary  experi- 
ence but  independent  of  it.  The  plastic  artist 
works  in  materials  familiar  to  his  ordinary  ex- 
perience ;  he  puts  in  his  pictures  or  statues  the 
men,  women,  animals,  trees,  and  other  physical 
objects  that  he  sees  about  him  daily.  Not  so 
the  musician.  He  deals  with  ideas  that  have 
no  existence  outside  of  his  art ;  and  he  there- 
fore constantly  keeps  up  in  his  mind  two  inde- 
pendent trains  of  thought,  coexistent  but  unre- 
lated. That  Mozart,  whose  purely  musical 
genius  was  perhaps  the  brightest  and  most  com- 
plete that  ever  existed,  habitually  lived  this 
double  mental  life,  there  are  many  evidences. 
His  sister-in-law  described  him  as  follows : 
"  He  was  always  good-humored,  but  thought- 
ful even  in  his  best  moods,  looking  one  straight 
*3* 


MOZART 

in  the  face,  and  always  speaking  with  reflection, 
whether  the  talk  was  grave  or  gay ;  and  yet  he 
seemed  always  to  be  carrying  on  a  deeper  train 
of  thought.  Even  when  he  was  washing  his 
hands  in  the  morning,  he  never  stood  still,  but 
walked  up  and  down  the  room  humming,  and 
buried  in  thought.  At  table  he  would  often 
twist  up  a  corner  of  the  table-cloth,  and  rub  his 
upper  lip  with  it,  without  appearing  in  the  least 
to  know  what  he  was  doing,  and  he  sometimes 
made  extraordinary  grimaces  with  his  mouth. 
His  hands  and  feet  were  in  continual  motion, 
and  he  was  always  strumming  on  something — 
his  hat,  his  watch-fob,  the  table,  the  chairs,  as 
if  they  were  the  clavier."  Other  contempora- 
ries have  recorded  that  he  carried  on  this  musi- 
cal thought  while  having  his  hair  dressed,  while 
bowling  or  playing  billiards,  while  talking  or 
joking,  and  even,  wonderful  to  say,  while  lis- 
tening to  other  music  that  did  not  especially 
interest  him.  "  The  greater  industry  of  his 
later  years,"  said  his  wife,  "  was  merely  appar- 
ent, because  he  wrote  down  more.  He  was 
always  working  in  his  head,  his  mind  was  in 
constant  motion,  and  one  may  say  that  he  never 
ceased  composing."   Lange,  his  brother-in-law, 

133 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

observed  that  "  when  he  was  engaged  on  his 
most  important  works  he  took  more  than  his 
usual  share  in  any  light  or  jesting  talk  that  was 
going  on."  When  his  wife  was  confined  of  her 
first  child  he  was  working  on  the  second  of  the 
quartets  dedicated  to  Haydn  ;  he  brought  his 
table  to  her  room,  and  frequently  rose  to  cheer 
or  comfort  her  in  her  pain,  without  apparently 
interrupting  his  train  of  thought.  On  the  even- 
ing before  the  day  set  for  the  first  performance 
of  "Don  Giovanni,"  the  overture  was  still  un- 
written, though  Mozart  doubtless  had  it  per- 
fectly clear  in  his  mind.  He  sat  up  most  of  the 
night  copying  it  out,  his  wife  meantime  plying 
him  with  punch  and  with  stories  to  keep  him 
awake ;  and  by  seven  in  the  morning  it  was 
complete.  When  he  sends  his  sister  a  prelude 
and  fugue  he  apologizes  for  the  prelude  being 
copied  after  the  fugue  instead  of  before  it. 
"  The  reason  was,"  he  adds,  "  that  I  had  al- 
ready composed  the  fugue,  and  wrote  it  down 
while  I  was  thinking  out  the  prelude." 

It  is  necessary  to  bear  constantly  in  mind  this 
independence,  activity,  and  self-sufficiency  of 
Mozart's  musical  thought-processes,  if  we  would 
at  all  understand  the  paradox  of  his  personal- 

*34 


MOZART 


ity.  Mozart  the  man,  and  Mozart  the  musi- 
cian, were  two  beings.  The  man,  when  all  is 
said,  and  in  spite  of  many  endearing  traits,  was 
disappointingly  commonplace.  Although  he 
was  a  good  linguist,  and  fond,  as  a  boy,  of 
mathematics,  he  was  intellectually  undistin- 
guished. His  letters  are  rather  conventional, 
he  kept  no  journal,  he  read  little,  and  though 
he  said  a  sharp  or  clever  thing  now  and  then 
his  conversation  was  not  remarkable.  Emo- 
tionally he  was  also  not  unusual.  Amiable, 
generous,  and  honorable,  he  was  rather  lack- 
ing in  will-power,  rather  immature  and  un- 
formed. 

His  mental  attitude  and  his  conduct  in  the 
world  were  curiously  childlike.  He  was  even 
unable  to  care  for  his  own  person  ;  his  wife  at- 
tended to  his  clothes  and  cut  up  his  meat  at 
table.  In  money  matters  he  was  not  a  child,  but 
a  baby.  Only  six  months  after  his  marriage  he 
began  a  long  course  of  borrowing,  in  small  sums, 
from  friends  and  relatives,  and  he  became  later 
a  familiar  figure  to  the  Viennese  pawnbrokers 
and  usurers.  To  make  matters  worse,  he  was 
so  kind-hearted  that  he  could  not  endure  the 
sight  of  suffering  when  he  had  money  to  relieve 

*35 


BEETHOVEN  AND  HIS   FORERUNNERS 

it.  The  result  was  that  he  gave  away  freely 
what  he  had  borrowed  with  difficulty,  and  sunk 
daily  deeper  in  the  morass  of  hopeless  debt.  His 
dealings  with  Albert  Stadler,  an  excellent  clari- 
netist and  a  wholly  unreliable  man,  will  serve  as 
a  specimen  of  his  guilelessness.  Being  asked  by 
Stadler  for  a  loan  of  fifty  ducats,  he  gave  him  in- 
stead two  valuable  watches  to  place  in  pawn,  on 
the  understanding  that  he  should  redeem  them 
in  due  time.  Of  course  Stadler  did  nothing 
about  it ;  whereupon  Mozart  gave  him  the  fifty 
ducats,  together  with  interest,  so  that  he  might 
redeem  the  watches.  Stadler  kept  the  money. 
And  what  is  more  remarkable,  Mozart  seems 
to  have  cordially  forgiven  him,  and  later  to  have 
made  him  further  loans. 

Mozart's  high  spirits  were  unquenchable.  A 
tireless  jester,  a  graceful  dancer,  a  good  hand  at 
billiards,  clever  as  an  impromptu  poet  of  dog- 
gerel verses  and  as  a  deviser  of  practical  jokes, 
he  found  in  society  the  relaxation  he  needed  from 
the  severe  mental  concentration  of  composing; 
and  there  is  no  doubt  that  he  gave  himself  up 
to  conviviality  and  to  frivolous  amours  more 
than  would  to-day  be  considered  becoming.  His 
fondness  for  wine  and  punch  were  generally 
236 


M  OZ AR  T 

known,  and  he  himself  confessed  to  his  wife  that 
he  was  not  always  faithful  to  her.  But  it  must 
be  remembered  that  in  pleasure-loving  Vienna, 
in  the  eighteenth  century,  manners  were  lax,  and 
that  Mozart,  although  by  his  very  sensitiveness 
peculiarly  subject  to  temptation,  was  never 
grossly  or  habitually  vicious.  His  failings  were 
those  of  a  high-spirited,  vivacious,  ardent  tem- 
perament, combined  with  an  amiable,  but  not  a 
profound  character.  There  was  no  depravity  in 
him,  but  there  was  at  the  same  time  little  moral 
or  mental  elevation.  His  humor,  which  bubbled 
forth  unceasingly,  was  of  the  flavor  of  the  comic 
papers  and  of  tavern  horse-play.  He  used  to 
make  his  friend  Leutgeb,  a  horn-player,  submit 
to  mock  penances  as  the  price  of  concertos  for 
his  instrument.  Once  the  penalty  was  to  col- 
lect all  the  orchestral  parts  from  the  floor,  where 
Mozart  threw  them  as  they  were  copied ;  an- 
other time  it  was  to  sit  behind  the  stove  until 
the  piece  was  written.  The  score  of  one  of  these 
concertos  bears  the  inscription :  "  Wolfgang 
Amadeus  Mozart  takes  pity  on  Leutgeb,  ass, 
ox,  and  simpleton,  at  Vienna,  March  27,  1783." 
Another  is  written  in  black,  red,  blue,  and  green 
ink.      Mozart  was  fond  of  writing,  to  original 

237 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

doggerel  words,  for  performance  by  gatherings 
of  his  friends,  comic  canons,  in  which  the  curi- 
ous duality  of  his  nature  is  strikingly  illustrated. 
The  words  were  colloquial,  full  of  slang,  and 
often  coarse  ;  the  music,  written  in  one  of  the 
most  severe  of  contrapuntal  forms,  was  always 
gracious  and  consummately  wrought  as  only 
Mozart  knew  how  to  make  it.  His  musical  hu- 
mor reaches  its  acme  in  the  "  Musikalische 
Spass,"  or,  as  he  himself  called  it,  the  "  Peas- 
ants' Symphony,"  for  string  quartet  and  two 
horns.  This  is  nothing  less  than  a  parody  of 
the  kind  of  work  that  Mozart  was  constantly 
producing  in  all  seriousness — a  Divertimento  in 
regular  form,  but  supposed  to  be  written  by  a 
tyro  and  played  by  amateurs.  The  horns  come 
in  pompously  with  wrong  notes  ;  the  first  violin, 
ascending  a  long  scale,  goes  half  a  tone  too  high; 
at  the  end,  in  the  midst  of  a  fanfare  in  F-major 
by  the  horns,  the  string  instruments  strike  in 
each  in  a  different  key.  "  The  attempt  after 
thematic  elaboration,"  says  Jahn,  "  is  very  lu- 
dicrous ;  it  is  as  though  the  composer  had  heard 
of  such  a  thing,  and  strove  to  imitate  it  in  a  few 
phrases,  greatly  to  his  own  satisfaction.  The 
art  is  most  remarkable  whereby  the  pretended 
238 


MOZART 


ignorance  never  becomes  wearisome,  and  the  au- 
dience is  kept  in  suspense  throughout." 

Thus  at  every  turn  are  we  impressed  with  that 
wondrous  inspiration  and  skill  as  an  artist  which 
were  so  curiously  combined  in  Mozart  with  lack 
of  distinction  as  a  man.  Even  Haydn,  for  all 
his  normality  and  usualness  of  emotion,  had  a  cer- 
tain human  quaintness  and  sweetness  for  which 
we  miss  any  analogue  in  Mozart.  Yet  when  we 
shift  the  point  of  view,  and  study  the  artists  rather 
than  the  men,  it  is  Mozart  who  stands  out  as  the 
more  interesting  figure.  As  we  saw  in  the  last 
chapter,  Haydn's  power  as  an  artist  depended 
chiefly  on  the  trenchancy  and  practical  grasp  of 
his  mind,  by  which  he  was  enabled  to  crystallize 
into  forms  of  salient  unity  the  motifs,  phrases, 
and  sections  of  his  music.  System  is  the  key- 
note of  his  work  ;  he  was  an  organizer,  both  by 
natural  faculty,  and  in  obedience  to  the  needs 
of  his  time.  And  he  had  the  defects  of  his  mer- 
its, in  a  certain  monotony,  angularity,  and  cut- 
and-dried  precision.  Mozart,  on  the  contrary, 
even  in  his  earliest  pieces,  already  cited,  showed 
a  more  flexible  artistic  technique  ;  and  beginning 
where  Haydn  left  off,  he  was  able  to  carry  the 
same  sort  of  organization  into  a  higher  stage, 

239 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 


combining  with  the  unity  of  the  whole  a  much 
greater  diversity  in  the  parts.  Variety  is  as  no- 
table in  Mozart's  work  as  unity  in  Haydn's.  His 
art  is  more  subtle,  and  not  a  whit  less  solid. 

In  the  first  place  as  regards  the  themes  them- 
selves, Mozart's  are  longer  and  more  complex 
than  Haydn's.  It  is  hard  to  imagine  Haydn 
disposing  his  phrases  with  the  ingenuity  and  men- 
tal grasp  shown  by  the  melody  in  Figure  XV., 
written  when  Mozart  was  only  six  years  old. 
The  characteristic  of  this  melody  is  that  the 
phrases  are  not  immediately  repeated,  thereby 
balancing  in  the  most  obvious  way,  but  alter- 
nated with  apparent  whimsicality,  which,  how- 
ever, eventually  issues  in  order.  This  is  even 
more  conspicuously  shown  by  the  following 
theme  from  Mozart's  great  G-minor  Quintet : 

Figure  XVIII. 


1 


± 


4  nrrr 


3Z=S=SZf3f 


ggl 


a 


^-4=? 


-v-r 


■0-*- 


0-^r 


h*. 


ife£i££=£: 


240 


MOZART 

Here  a  broad  and  perfectly  poised  melody  is 
evolved  from  two  simple  motifs  by  a  deftly  man- 
aged accretion.  The  effect  reminds  one  of  Bee- 
thoven; Haydn  could  scarcely  have  conceived  it. 
In  harmony  Mozart  is  more  venturesome  than 
his  predecessor.  His  harmonic  structure,  while 
no  less  clear  than  Haydn's,  is  less  bald,  less 
obvious.  In  the  fifth  of  the  quartets  dedicated 
to  Haydn,  for  example,  in  A-major,  there  is  an 
early  and  pronounced  modulation  to  C-major ; 
after  which  the  second  theme  comes  in  regularly 
in  the  dominant  key.  The  effect  of  this  insist- 
ence on  a  comparatively  distant  key  is  to  blur 
slightly  the  contour  of  the  form,  and  to  prevent 
any  possible  sense  of  triteness.  In  the  Finale 
of  the  third  quartet,  Mozart,  after  ending  his 
first  part  strongly  in  C-major,  jumps  suddenly, 
quite  without  warning,  to  an  emphatic  chord  of 
D-flat  major, — a  device  by  which  we  are  irresisti- 
bly reminded  of  the  complete  shifts  of  tonality  at 
the  beginning  of  the  coda  of  the  first  movement 
of  the  "  Eroica  "  Symphony.  Perhaps  the  most 
brilliant  stroke  of  genius  in  harmonic  concep- 
tion that  Mozart  ever  made,  however,  is  the  fa- 
mous passage  introducing  the  C-major  Quartet. 
It  runs  as  follows  : 

241 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 


Figure  XJJL    Introduction  to  Mozart's  C-major  Quartet. 
Adagio.  X    (W-  -0-      J 


.St: 


3": 


r — r^rr 


m 


j 


1— « m— 


*—W- 


& 


*-*-+ -*-#- 


U 


*ff 


-aJ   J   ,J- 


JgS  ^ 


bp   P   *i    x" 


*3> 


r  r 


jt» 


OS. 


ill 


etc. 


I    I        I    I    1      I    !    ! 


i  x 


fT 


^^ 


242 


MOZART 

It  was  to  passages  of  this  kind  (though  even 
Mozart  could  not  write  many  equalling  it  in 
supernal  beauty  and  mystery  of  effect)  that  he 
owed  his  reputation  for  heterodoxy  and  radi- 
calism among  the  pedants  of  the  time.  A 
musical  connoisseur  of  Vienna  is  said  to  have 
torn  up  the  instrumental  parts  of  these  quar- 
tets in  his  anger  at  finding  that  "  the  discords 
played  by  the  musicians  were  really  in  the 
parts  ";  the  parts  were  also  returned  from  Italy 
as  being  "full  of  printer's  errors";  and  even  so 
good  a  musician  as  Fetis  undertook  to  "correct" 
this  very  Introduction.  Thus  to  scandalize  the 
conservative  is  ever  the  effect  of  the  daring, 
novel,  and  unprecedented  conceptions  of  genius. 
Mozart's  rhythms,  again,  are  much  more  var- 
ious than  Haydn's.  The  characteristic  figures 
of  his  themes  are  apt  to  be  strongly  contrasted, 
whereas  Haydn's  generally  bear  a  family  re- 
semblance to  one  another.  Take,  for  example, 
the  themes  of  the  first  movement  of  Mozart's 
String  Quintet  in  G-minor.  The  first  is  a 
simple  series  of  eighth-notes  : 

4  ;|  miJ-4- 

*43 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

The  second  is  more  resilient  and  individual : 


The  third,  or  conclusion-passage,  is  of  a  most 
strongly  marked  character : 

Not  only  do  these  figures  contrast  well  as  they 
appear  successively,  but  Mozart  knows  how  to 
combine  them  in  a  very  intricate  web.  When 
the  third  one  enters  in  the  'cello,  the  second  vio- 
lin and  viola  toss  back  and  forth  the  first,  the 
second  viola  plays  a  slow  sustaining  part  in  quar- 
ter and  half-notes,  and  the  first  violin  has  a  rac- 
ing counterpoint  in  sixteenth-notes.  All  this 
means  life,  variety,  interest.  And  as  for  the  ques- 
tion of  diversity  in  phrase-structure,  it  is  only 
necessary  to  compare  the  Minuet  of  Mozart's 
G-minor  Symphony,  with  its  odd  three-measure 
phrases  and  its  wide  climactic  stretches  of  mel- 
ody, with  the  square-cut  Minuet  of  Haydn's  Sur- 
prise Symphony,  to  gain  a  vivid  idea  of  the 
younger  composer's  superiority  in  rhythmic  life. 
In  the  general  construction  of  his  works, 
moreover,  Mozart  is  more  skillful  than  Haydn. 

*44 


MOZART 

Haydn's  transitions  from  theme  to  theme  are 
frequently  conventional  to  a  degree — passages 
of  scales  or  arpeggios  unrelated  to  the  thematic 
material,  and  therefore  mechanical  in  effect. 
Mozart,  whose  melodic  fecundity  was  limitless, 
is  much  more  apt  to  write  new,  subsidiary  mel- 
odies for  his  transitions  ;  and  though  such  pas- 
sages lacked  the  fine  economy  of  Beethoven's 
carefully  wrought  transitions,  founded  on  the 
themes  themselves,  yet  they  were  far  more  vital 
than  Haydn's  empty  formulas.  When  it  came 
to  the  working  out  of  the  themes,  in  the  "  de- 
velopment section "  of  the  sonata,  Mozart 
again  had  Haydn  at  a  disadvantage,  owing  to 
his  greater  contrapuntal  technique,  the  result 
of  early  study,  and  to  the  superior  native  logic 
of  his  mind.  Haydn's  development  sections 
are  apt  to  sound  perfunctory  ;  worked  out  more 
by  rule  of  thumb  than  by  spontaneous  fancy, 
they  hold  together  imperfectly,  and  seem  frag- 
mentary and  artificial.  Mozart's  are  more  flu- 
ent, more  sequacious,  and  more  inevitable. 
Mozart  is  thus  in  all  respects  a  more  subtle 
artist  than  Haydn. 

In  expression,  the  prevailing  quality  of  Mo- 
zart's work  is  a  clear  serenity,  an  indescribable 

*45 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

joyfulness  and  starry  beauty,  the  natural  result 
of  his  artistic  perfection.  In  spite  of  a  deep 
and  mordant  passion  that  he  undoubtedly  voices 
at  times,  as  in  the  G-minor  Quintet  and  in  por- 
tions of  the  quartets  and  the  G-minor  Sym- 
phony, in  spite  of  the  breadth  and  heroism  of 
such  movements  as  the  Andante  of  the  E-flat 
Quartet  and  the  Finale  of  the  Jupiter  Sym- 
phony, and  in  spite  of  the  mystic  vagueness  and 
aspiration  of  that  marvellous  Introduction  to 
the  C-major  Quartet,  which  stamps  him  as  an 
idealist,  at  least  in  posse,  his  general  tone  is  pagan, 
unsophisticated,  naive.  He  not  only  lacks  the 
self-consciousness,  the  tragic  intensity,  and  the 
fierce,  virile  logic  of  Beethoven  ;  he  lacks  the 
genial,  peasant  humanity  of  Haydn.  There  is 
an  aloofness,  a  detachment,  a  rarefied  purity, 
about  his  music,  that  makes  it  difficult  to  de- 
scribe in  terms  of  human  feeling.  It  has  the 
irresponsible  perfection,  the  untarnished  lustre, 
not  to  be  dimmed  by  human  tears,  of  the  best 
Greek  art. 
— -^  Every  attempt  that  has  been  made  to  de- 
scribe in  words  the  differences  between  the 
music  of  Mozart  and  that  of  his  great  succes- 
sor,  Beethoven,  has    necessarily  failed.     The 

*46 


M  OZ ART 


matter  is  too  subtle  for  literary  description. 
Yet  Henry  Frederic  Amiel,  with  his  usual  mar- 
velous perceptiveness,  wrote  in  his  journal, 
after  hearing  quartets  by  the  two  masters,  a  pas- 
sage that  must  be  quoted  here.  It  at  least  sug- 
gests their  characteristics  with  an  unerring  insight : 
"  Mozart — ,"  writes  Amiel,  "  grace,  liberty, 
certainty,  freedom,  and  precision  of  style, — an 
exquisite  and  aristocratic  beauty, — serenity  of 
soul, — the  health  and  talent  of  the  master,  both 
on  a  level  with  his  genius  ;  Beethoven,  more 
pathetic,  more  passionate,  more  torn  with  feel- 
ing, more  intricate,  more  profound,  less  perfect, 
more  the  slave  of  his  genius,  more  carried  away 
by  his  fancy  or  his  passion,  more  moving  and 
more  sublime  than  Mozart.  Mozart  refreshes 
you,  like  the  c  Dialogues  '  of  Plato ;  he  respects 
you,  reveals  to  you  your  strength,  gives  you 
freedom  and  balance.  Beethoven  seizes  upon 
you ;  he  is  more  tragic  and  oratorical,  while 
Mozart  is  more  disinterested  and  poetical. 
Mozart  is  more  Greek,  and  Beethoven  more 
Christian.  One  is  serene,  the  other  serious. 
The  first  is  stronger  than  destiny,  because  he 
takes  life  less  profoundly ;  the  second  is  less 
strong,  because  he  has  dared  to  measure  him- 

*47 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

self  against  deeper  sorrows.  His  talent  is  not 
always  equal  to  his  genius,  and  pathos  is  his 
dominant  feature,  as  perfection  is  that  of  Mo- 
zart. In  Mozart  the  balance  of  the  whole  is 
perfect,  and  art  triumphs.  In  Beethoven  feel- 
ing governs  everything,  and  emotion  troubles 
his  art  in  proportion  as  it  deepens  it." 

While  the  contrast  here  so  well  brought  out 
is  perhaps  slightly  over-stated,  it  is  certain  that 
between  Mozart  and  Beethoven  comes  the  gap 
between  the  serene  childhood  and  the  serious  and 
thoroughly  awakened  maturity  of  secular  music. 
Even  in  the  earliest  works  of  Beethoven,  ob- 
viously modelled  as  they  are  in  the  forms  and 
idioms  made  common  property  by  his  forerun- 
ners, there  is  a  virility,  a  profundity,  an  intensity 
of  spiritual  ardor,  for  which  we  look  in  vain  in 
Haydn  and  Mozart.  In  him  the  idealism  which 
with  them  was  instinctive  arrives  at  self-con- 
sciousness. He  is  founded  securely  upon  them, 
but  he  carries  music  to  higher  issues  than  it  was 
in  their  happier  and  simpler  natures  to  imagine. 
In  leaving  Mozart,  therefore,  we  leave  the  pre- 
paratory stage  of  the  art  of  pure  music,  to  pass 
into  the  stage  in  which  it  realized  its  promises 
and  accomplished  its  mission. 

248 


CHAPTER      VII 
BEETHOVEN 


CHAPTER     VII 
BEETHOVEN 


* 


N  E  of  the  most  fascinating,  and  at 
the  same  time  the  most  baffling, 
problems  of  the  biographer,  is 
to  determine  just  what  propor- 
tion of  the  characteristics  of  a 
great  man  are  inherited  from  his  ancestors,  and 
what  proportion  take  their  origin  in  himself  as 
an  individual,  to  what  degree  his  personality  is 
merely  a  resultant  or  resume  of  various  quali- 
ties converging  from  many  points  into  a  fresh 
focus,  and  to  what  degree  it  is  a  unique  crea- 
tion, without  traceable  precedents  or  ascertain- 
able causes.  It  is  always  possible  to  concoct  a 
given  character,  however  striking  or  unusual, 
by  a  judicious  selection  of  ancestral  traits  ;  if  we 
will  but  search  far  enough  back,  any  man's  an- 
cestors will   make  up  quite  an  adequate  repre- 

a5i 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

sentation  of  the  entire  human  race,  so  that  each 
of  his  qualities  need  only  be  observed,  noted, 
and  traced  to  the  particular  great-grandfather 
or  great-great-grandmother  who  happened  to 
manifest  it  previously  ;  and  we  can  thus  clev- 
erly explain  and  label  the  oddest  individual. 
The  real  difficulty  is  to  explain  how  he  hap- 
pened to  inherit  just  these  qualities  and  no 
others,  why  he  is,  in  a  word,  just  this  self  in- 
stead of  some  other  self,  equally  derivable  but 
totally  different.  This  difficulty  has  brought 
the  whole  subject  of  heredity  into  disfavor  with 
some  students ;  and  it  is  certain  that  in  the 
present  state  of  our  knowledge  the  study  of  the 
individual  must  precede  and  guide  the  study  of 
his  origins.  Nevertheless,  there  are  cases  in 
which  the  essential  qualities  are  so  unmistakably 
inherited  that  the  most  illuminating  way  to  ap- 
proach an  individual  is  through  a  study  of  his 
ancestors. 

Such  a  case  is  Beethoven's.;  A  French  writer, 
M.  Teodor  de  Wyzewa,  in  a  book  called  "  Bee- 
thoven et  Wagner,"  has  made  so  masterly,  so 
discriminating  an  analysis  of  Beethoven's  par- 
ents and  grandparents,  that  no  one  can  read  it 
without  a  strong  conviction  of  the  important 
252 


BEET  HOVE  N 


part  played  by  heredity  in  the  formation  of  this 
extraordinarily  unique,  peculiar,  and  well-defined 
character.  No  man  ever  existed  who  was  more 
intensely  individual  than  Beethoven  ;  yet  many 
of  the  traits  which  in  him  were  so  marvelously 
blended,  and  which  in  the  blending  produced 
so  novel  a  flavor,  were  undoubtedly  derived 
from  earlier,  and  quite  undistinguished,  mem- 
bers of  his  family. 

Beethoven's  grandfather,  Ludwig  van  Bee- 
thoven, born  at  Antwerp  in  17 12,  was  of  an 
old  Flemish  family  of  marked  national  charac- 
ter. He  early  removed  to  Bonn,  the  seat  of 
the  Elector  of  Cologne,  as  a  court-musician, 
and  in  1761  became  court  music-director,  a  po- 
sition which  he  held  with  zeal  and  ability  until 
his  death  in  1773.  ^  "  He  was,"  says  M.  de 
Wyzewa,  "  a  man  of  middle  stature,  sinewy 
and  thick-set,  with  strongly-marked  features, 
clear  eyes,  and  an  extreme  vivacity  of  manner. 
Great  energy  and  a  high  sense  of  duty  were 
combined,  in  him,  with  a  practical  good  sense 
and  a  dignity  of  demeanor  that  earned  for  him, 
in  the  city  he  had  entered  poor  and  unknown, 
universal  respect.  His  musical  knowledge  and 
ability  were  considerable  ;  and  although  he  was 

*53 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

not  an  original  composer,  he  had  frequently 
to  make  arrangements  of  music  for  perform- 
ance by  his  choir.  He  was  a  man  of  strong 
family  and  patriotic  sentiment,  and  established 
in  Bonn  quite  a  colony  of  Flemish,  his  brothers 
and  cousins." 

Beethoven's  grandmother,  on  the  other  hand, 
born  Maria-Josepha  Poll,  developed  early  in 
her  married  life  a  passion  for  drink  which  finally 
obliged  her  husband  to  send  her  to  a  convent, 
where  she  remained,  without  contact  with  her 
family,  until  her  death.  It  is  probable  that  this 
unfortunate  tendency  was  but  a  symptom  of  a 
morbid  weakness  of  the  nervous  system,  be- 
yond the  control  of  her  will — a  fact,  as  we 
shall  see,  interesting  in  its  possible  bearing  on 
the  interpretation  of  her  grandson's  idiosyncra- 
sies. 

In  1740  was  born  to  this  ill-assorted  couple 
a  son,  Johann  van  Beethoven,  the  father  of  the 
composer.  M.  de  Wyzewa  treats  him  sum- 
marily :  "  His  character,  like  his  intelligence, 
can  be  described  in  one  word — he  was  a  perfect 
nullity  ";  adding,  however,  that  he  was  not  a 
bad  man,  as  some  of  the  anecdotes  regarding 
his  conduct  toward  his  son  seem  to  indicate : — 


: 


BEETHOVEN 


"  He  was  merely  idle,  common,  and  foolish." 
For  the  rest,  he  was  a  tenor  singer  in  the  court 
chapel,  and  he  passed  his  leisure  in  taverns  and 
billiard-rooms. 

Beethoven's  mother  was  a  woman  of  tender 
sensibilities  and  affections,  condemned  to  a  life 
of  unhappiness  by  the  worthless  character  of  ^  <• 
her  husband.  Her  whole  life  was  devoted  to,. 
the  education  of  her  son  Ludwig^who  wrote 
of  her :  "  She  has  been  to  me  a  good  and  lov- 
ing mother,  and  my  best  friend."  She  was  of 
delicate  health,  and  died  of  consumption  when 
Beethoven  was  but  seventeen. 

This  was  the  curiously  assorted  set  of  ances- 
tors from  which  Beethoven  seems  to  have  drawn 
his  more  prominent  traits. ,  If,  to  begin  with, 
we  eliminate  the  father,  who,  as  M.  de  Wyzewa 
remarks,  was  an  "  absolute  nullity,"  and  "  merely 
the  intermediary  between  his  son  and  his  father, 
the  Flemish  music-director,"  we  f  shall  find  that 
from  the  latter,  his  grandfather,  Beethoven  de-^ 
rived  the  foundation  of  his  sturdy,  self-respect- 
ing, and  independent  moral  character,  that  from 
his  mother  he  got  the  emotional  sensibility  that 
was  so  oddly  mingled  with  it,  and  that  from  his 
afflicted  grandmother,  Maria-Josepha   Poll,  he 

*55 


BEETHOVEN   AND  HIS  FORERUNNERS 

inherited  a  weakness  of  the  nervous  system,  an 
irritability  and  morbid  sensitiveness,  that  gave 
to  his  intense  individualism  a  tinge  of  the  ec- 
centric and  the  pathological.  Without  doubt 
the  most  important  factor  in  this  heredity  was 
that  which  came  from  the  grandfather  J  and  al- 
though M.  de  Wyzewa  is  perhaps  led  by  his 
racial  sympathies  to  assign  an  undue  importance 
to  this  Flemish  element,  yet  what  he  has  to  say 
of  it  is  most  suggestive.  Pointing  out  the  ob- 
vious fact  that  purely  German  composers,  as 
well  as  poets  and  painters,  are  naturally  dis- 
posed to  vagueness,  sentimentality,  and  cloudy 
symbolism,  he  remarks  that  nothing  of  the  sort 
appears  in  Beethoven,  "  whose  effort  was  con- 
stantly toward  the  most  precise  and  positive 
expression  ";  that  he  eliminated  all  the  artifices 
of  mere  ornament,  in  the  interests  of  "  a  rigor- 
ous presentation  of  infinitely  graduated  emo- 
tions ";  and  that  he  "  progressed  steadily  to- 
ward simplification  of  means  combined  with 
.  complication  of  effect."  He  shows  how  Bee- 
y\ v/thoven  owed  to  his  Flemish  blood,  in  the  first 
place,  his  remarkable  accuracy  and  delicacy  of 
sensation  ;  in  the  second  place,  his  wisdom  and 
solid  common  sense,  his  "  esprit  lucide,  raison- 
256 


BEETHOVEN 


ab/ey  marchant  toujours  droit  aux  choses  neces- 
saires  ";  in  the  third  place,  his  largeness  of  na- 
ture, grandeur  of  imagination,  robust  sanity, 
and  heroic  joy,  justly  likened  to  similar  qualities 
in  Rubens  ;  and  finally,  his  moral  earnestness, 
that  "energy  of  soul  which  in  his  youth  sus- 
tained him  in  the  midst  of  miseries  and  disap- 
pointments of  all  sorts,  and  which  later  enabled 
him  to  persist  in  his  work  in  spite  of  sickness, 
neglect,  and  poverty." 

Of  Beethoven's  mother  M.  de  Wyzewa  says, 
"  Poor  Marie-Madeleine,  with  her  pale  com- 
plexion and  her  blonde  hair,  was  not  in  vain  a 
woman  *  souffrante  et  sensible^  since  from  her 
came  her  son's  faculty  of  living  in  the  emo- 
tions, of  seeing  all  the  world  colored  with  sen- 
timent and  passion."  This  emotional  tendency, 
the  writer  thinks,  the  Flemish  blood  could  not 
have  given  ;  and  "  it  was  to  the  unusual  union 
of  this  profound  German  sensibility  with  the 
Flemish  accuracy  and  keenness  of  mind  that 
Beethoven  owed  his  power  to  delineate  with  ex- 
traordinary precision  the  most  intimate  and  ten- 
der sentiments."  With  a  final  suggestion,  ten- 
tatively advanced,  that  the  weaknesses  of  Bee-L 
thoven's  character,  his  changeable  humor,  his 

*57 


BEETHOVEN   AND  HIS  FORERUNNERS 

sudden  fits  of  temper,  his  unaccountable  alter- 
nations of  gaiety  and  discouragement,  may  have 
been  due  to  a  nervous  malady  traceable  to  the 
grandmother,  Maria-Josepha  Poll,  this  masterly 
study  of  Beethoven's  antecedents,  from  which, 
whether  we  entirely  accept  its  conclusions  or 
not,  we  cannot  fail  to  gain  illumination,  comes 
to  a  close.* 

Ludwig  van  Beethoven,  the  second  of  seven 
children  of  Johann  and  Maria- Magdalena  Bee- 
thoven, was  born  at  Bonn  on  the  Rhine,  on  De- 
cember 1 6  or  17, 1770.  Inheriting  the  musical 
talent  of  his  father  and  grandfather,  he  early 
showed  so  much  ability  that  his  father,  stimu- 
lated by  the  stories  of  the  wondrous  precocity 
of  Mozart,  decided  to  make  him  into  a  boy 
prodigy.  Ludwig  was  put  hard  at  work,  at  the 
age  of  four,  learning  to  play  the  piano,  the  vio- 
lin, and  the  organ,  and  to  compose ;  and  though 
he  had  by  no  means  the  facility  of  Mozart,  he 
progressed  so  well  that  at  thirteen  he  was  made 
"cembalist"  [accompanist]  in  the  court  band 
of  the  Elector  of  Cologne,  whose  seat  was  at 
that  time  in   Bonn,  j  The  first  public  mention 

*  **  Beethoven  et  Wagner.     Essais  d'  Histoire  et  de  Critique 
Musicales."     Teodor  de  Wyzewa.      Paris,  1898. 

a58 


BEETHOVEN 


of  Beethoven  occurs  in  an  article  entitled  "An 
Account  of  the  Elector  of  Cologne's  Chapel  at 
Bonn,"  written  in  1783,  and  runs  as  follows: 

"  Ludwig  van  Beethoven  is  a  promising  boy 
of  eleven.  [Johann  van  Beethoven  had  evidently 
trimmed  his  son's  age  to  suit  his  own  idea  of 
what  a  self-respecting  prodigy's  should  be.] 
He  plays  the  piano  with  fluency  and  force, 
reads  well  at  sight,  and  has  mastered  the  greater 
part  of  Sebastian  Bach's  '  Well-Tempered  Clavi- 
chord.' Any  one  acquainted  with  this  collec- 
tion of  Preludes  and  Fugues  in  every  key  will 
understand  what  this  means.  His  teacher  has 
given  him  instruction  in  Thorough  Bass,  and  is 
now  practicing  him  in  composition.  This  youth- 
ful genius  deserves  assistance,  that  he  may  be 
enabled  to  travel ;  if  he  continues  as  he  has 
begun,  he  will  certainly  become  a  second  Wolf- 
gang Amadeus  Mozart." 

The  Electtfr  of  Cologne  seems  to  have  acted 
upon  the  suggestion  of  the  last  sentence.  ^  In 
1786  he  sent  Beethoven  for  a  short  visit  to 
Vienna,  the  Mecca  of  all  musicians.  Here  he 
had  the  privilege  of  playing  before  the  great 
Mozart  himself,  who,  becoming  deeply  inter- 
ested in  his  masterly  improvisation,  turned  to 

*59 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

the  company  with  the  remark:  "  Look  after  him. 
He  will  some  day  make  a  great  name  in  the 
world."  /  The  visit  so  auspiciously  begun  was 
unfortunately  cut  short  by  the  death  of  Bee- 
thoven's mother,  and  he  returned  to  Bonn 
to  assume  the  responsibilities  of  his  inefficient 
father  in  caring  for  his  brothers  and  sisters.  He 
now  entered  on  a  depressing  and  long-continued 
drudgery  of  teaching,  which  he  seems  to  have 
endured  courageously.  His  sterling  character, 
as  well  as  his  genius,  began  to  attract  the  atten- 
tion of  many  of  the  wealthy  nobles  of  Bonn,  pa- 
trons of  art;  so  that  difficult  as  was  this  period 
of  his  life,  it  laid  a  solid  foundation  for  his  subse- 
quent fortunes. 

Ludwig  Nohl,  in  his  "  Beethoven  Depicted 
by  His  Contemporaries,"  gives  an  interesting 
sketch  of  Beethoven  as  he  appeared!/ at  about 
this  time^to  a  young  lady,  afterwards  Frau  von 
Barnhard,  who  met  him  at  the  musical  soirees 
of  Prince  Lichnowsky  and  Herr  von  Kliipfell. 
"  Beethoven,"  says  Nohl,  "  thought  so  highly 
of  the  talents  of  this  young  girl  that  for  several 
years  he  sent  her  regularly  a  copy  of  his  new 
pianoforte  compositions,  as  soon  as  they  were 
printed.  Unfortunately  not  one  of  the  friendly 
260 


B  EETH  OVE  N 


or  joking  little  letters,  with  which  he  accompa- 
nied his  gifts,  has  been  preserved:  so  many- 
handsome  Russian  officers  frequented  Herr 
Kliipfell's  that  the  ugly  Beethoven  made  no 
impression  ,on  the  young  lady. 

"  Herr  Kliipfell  was  very  musical,  and  Bee- 
thoven went  a  great  deal  to  his  house,  and  often 
played  the  piano  for  hours,  but  always  '  without 
notes.'  To  do  this  was  then  thought  marvel- 
ous, and  delighted  every  one.  One  day  a  well- 
known  composer  played  one  of  his  new  compo- 
sitions. When  he  began,  Beethoven  was  sit- 
ting on  the  sofa ;  but  he  soon  began  to  walk 
about,  turn  over  music  at  the  piano,  and  not  to 
pay  the  least  attention  to  the  performance. 
Herr  Kliipfell  was  annoyed,  and  commissioned 
a  friend  to  tell  him  that  his  conduct  was  unbe- 
coming, that  a  young  and  unknown  man  ought 
to  show  respect  towards  a  senior  composer  of 
merit.  From  that  moment  Beethoven  never 
set  foot  in  Kliipfell's  house. 

"  Frau  von  Barnhard  has  a  lively  recollection 
of  the  young  man's  wayward  peculiarities.  She 
says:  'When  he  visited  us,  he  generally  put  his 
head  in  at  the  door  before  entering,  to  see  if 
there  were  anyone  present  he  did  not  like.    He 

»6i 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

was  short  and  insignificant-looking,  with  a  red 
face  covered  with  pock  marks.  His  hair  was 
quite  dark.  His  dress  was  very  common,  quite 
a  contrast  to  the  elegant  attire  customary  in 
those  days,  especially  in  our  circles.  I  remem- 
ber quite  well  how  Haydn  and  Salieri  used  to 
sit  on  the  sofa  at  one  side  of  the  little  music- 
room,  both  most  carefully  attired  in  the  former 
mode  with  wigs,  shoes,  and  silk  stockings,  while 
Beethoven  came  negligently  dressed  in  the  freer 
fashion  of  the  Upper  Rhine.  Haydn  and  Sal- 
ieri wfcre  then  famous,  while  Beethoven  excited 
no  interest.  He  spoke  with  a  strong  provincial 
accent;  his  manner  of  expression  was  slightly 
vulgar;  his  general  bearing  showed  no  signs  of 
culture,  and  his  behaviour  was  very  unman- 
nerly. He  was  proud,  and  I  have  known  him 
refuse  to  play,  even  when  Countess  Thun, 
Prince  Lichnowsky's  mother,  a  very  eccentric 
woman,  had  fallen  on  her  knees  before  him  as 
he  lay  on  the  sofa,  to  beg  him  to.' " 

This  passage  gives  us  a  glimpse  of  the  Vienna 
of  the  early  nineteenth  century,  the  Vienna  of 
Beethoven's  young  manhood ;  and  it  is  inter- 
esting to  note  how  favorable  an  environment, 
on  the  whole,  this  capital  of  the  musical  world 
262 


BEETHOVEN 


was  for  the  great  composer.  If  the  middle 
classes  were  not  yet  sufficiently  educated  in 
music  to  support  many  public  concerts,  there 
was  at  least  among  the  aristocracy,  who  were 
rich,  hospitable,  and  music-loving,  plenty  of 
generous  patronage  for  rising  composers.  Many 
of  the  noble  families  maintained  private  orches- 
tras, and  paid  liberally  for  new  compositions. 
Haydn,  as  we  have  seen,  spent  most  of  his  life 
in  the  service  of  the  Esterhazys,  and  Mozart, 
although  without  a  regular  patron  after  his  rup- 
ture with  the  Archbishop  of  Salzburg,  wrote 
many  of  his  works  for  royal  or  noble  amateurs. 
Beethoven  was  even  more  generously  supported. 
His  removal  from  Bonn  to  Vienna,  in  1792,  was 
made  at  the  expense  of  the  Elector  of  Cologne; 
and  after  he  was  once  settled  there  he  received 
constant  help  from  Rudolph,  Archduke  of  Aus- 
tria, from  Princes  Lobkowitz,  Lichnowsky,  and 
Kinsky,  and  from  many  others.  Moreover, 
profiting  much  by  Haydn's  and  Mozart's  pio- 
neer work  in  popularizing  the  higher  forms  of 
secular  music,  he  was  able  to  sell  all  his  works 
to  publishers  at  good  prices,  thereby  supple- 
menting his  income  from  patrons.  By  1800 
his  worldly  situation  was  secure ;  in  that  year  he 
263 


w/i 


BEETHOVEN     AND     HIS      FORERUNNERS 

wrote  to  a  friend:  "Lichnowsky  last  year  settled 
600  florins  on  me,  which,  together  with  the  good 
sale  of  my  works,  enables  me  to  live  free  from 
care  as  to  my  maintenance.  All  that  I  now 
write  I  can  dispose  of  five  times  over,  and  be 
well  paid  into  the  bargain." 

There  were,  however,  in  Beethoven's  situ- 
ation, trying  elements  which  gravely  harassed 
and  handicapped  him.  In  the  first  place,  he  was 
as  unfortunate  in  his  family  as  he  was  fortunate 
L  in  his  friends.  In  his  case,  "  the  closest  kin 
were  most  unkind."  Even  after  the  death  of 
his  shiftless  and  drunken  father,  in  1792,  there 
were  still  two  brothers,  Carl  and  Johann,  who 
remained  throughout  his  life  his  evil  geniuses. 
Almost  incredible  is  their  indifference  to  him, 
their  utter  failure  to  appreciate  his  noble  nature. 
When  he  was  prosperous  they  borrowed  money 
from  him,  and  even  stole  jewelry  ;  when  he  was 
poor  and  neglected  theyrefused  him  the  slightest 
favors.  Carl  left  to  him  the  care  of  his  worth- 
less son,  who  proved  the  greatest  trial  of  his  life. 
Johann,  by  withholding  his  closed  carriage  for 
a  necessary  winter  journey,  directly  contributed 
\  to  the  illness  that  ended  in  his  death.  This  ut- 
ter lack  of  common  sympathy  had  the  most 
264 


BEETHOVEN 


poisonous  effect  on  his  sensitive,  affectionate  na- 
ture. It  saddened,  depressed,  and  embittered 
him. 

A  second  cruel  disadvantage  was  the  malady 
of  deafness  which  began  to  afflict  Beethoven  in 
1798,  and  by  the  end  of  1801  became  serious.^. 
At  first  there  was  merely  buzzing  and  singing 
in  the  ears  ;  then  came  insensibility  to  tones  of 
high  pitch,  such  as  the  higher  register  of  the 
flute  and  the  overtones  in  human  speech  ;  and 
finally  such  a  serious  deafness  that  he  had  to 
give  up  playing  in  public  and  conducting,  and 
to  carry  on  conversation  by  means  of  an  ear- 
trumpet  or  paper  and  pencil.  Formidable  to 
his  musical  work  as  was  such  an  impediment,  it 
was  even  more  baneful  in  its  effect  on  his  rela- 
tions with  men,  and  so  upon  his  disposition. 
Asjar  as  his  work  was  concerned,  it  had  its  com- 
pensations, in  so  far  as  it  increased  his  isolation, 
his  concentration  on  the  marvelously  complex 
and  subtle  involutions  of  his  musical  ideas.  It 
insulated  him  from  distractions,  and  freed  him 
to  explore  with  single  mind  the  labyrinths  of 
his  imagination.  But  on  his  social  and  emotional 
life  deafness  wrought  sad  havoc — all  the  sadder 
because  the  tendencies  it  reenforced  were  already 

265 


! 

BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

too  strong  in  Beethoven's  intense  and  proud 
nature,    u 

Beethoven  had,  in  a  peculiar  degree,  both  the 
merits  and  the  defects  of  the  individualist.   Not 

-^even  Thoreau  was  more  resolved  to  follow  only 
the  dictates  of  his  own  genius,  to  find  his  code 
of  action  within,  in  the  impulses  of  his  own 
heart  and  mind,  rather  than  without,  in  the  con- 
ventions, habits,  and  customs  which  guide  the 
ordinary  man.  Like  all  idealists,  he  believed  in 
the  beauty  and  Tightness  of  the  whole  world  of 
human  feeling,  revealed  to  him  by  his  na'ive  con- 
sciousness, not  trimmed  to  suit  prejudice  or 
partial  views  of  what  is  proper  and  admissible. 
Gifted  with  an  emotional  nature  of  rare  rich- 
ness and  intensity,  and  with  an  intellect  capa- 
ble of  dealing  directly  with  experience  on  its 

^own  account,  he  lived  the  life  and  thought  the 
thoughts  that  seemed  good  to  him,  quite  indif- 
ferent to  accepted  views  which  happened  to  run 
counter.  Thus  his  sincerity  necessarily  led  him 
into  an  unconventionality,  an  indifference  to  es- 
tablished ways  of  acting,  feeling,  and  thinking, 
which,  when  circumstances  pushed  him  still 
further  away  from  the  common  human  life,  eas- 
ily passed  over  into  morbid  eccentricity. 

266 


BEETHOVEN 


His  unconventionality  appears  in  all  his  ac- 
tions and  opinions,  from  the  most  trivial  to  the 
most  momentous.  Take,  for  instance,  to  begin 
with,  the  matter  of  personal  appearance,  dress, 
and  demeanor.  What  an  altogether  unusual 
man  it  was  that  Carl  Czerny,  as  a  boy  of  ten,  in 
1 80 1,  was  taken  to  visit !  "  We  mounted,"  says 
Czerny,  "  five  or  six  stories  high  to  Beethoven's 
apartment,  and  were  announced  by  a  rather  dirty- 
looking  servant.  In  a  very  desplate  room,  with 
papers  and  articles  of  dress  strewn  in  all  direc- 
tions, bare  walls,  a  few  chests,  hardly  a  chair  ex- 
cept the  ricketty  one  standing  by  the  piano,  there 
was  a  party  of  six  or  eight  people.  Beethoven 
was  dressed  in  a  jacket  and  trousers  of  long, 
dark  goat's  hair,  which  at  once  reminded  me  of 
the  description  of  Robinson  Crusoe  I  had  just 
been  reading.  He  had  a  shock  of  jet  black  hair, 
(cut  a  la  Titus),  standing  straight  upright.  A 
beard  of  several  days'  growth  made  his  naturally 
dark  face  still  blacker.  I  noticed  also,  with  a 
child's  quick  observation,  that  he  had  cotton 
wool,  which  seemed  to  have  been  dipped  in  some 
yellow  fluid,  in  both  ears.  His  hands  were  cov- 
ered with  hair,  and  the  fingers  very  broad,  es- 
pecially at  the  tips."  The  oddity  in  dress  ob- 
167 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

served  by  Czerny  was  habitual  with  Beethoven. 
v  "  In  the  summer  of  1813,"  says  Schindler,  "he 
had  neither  a  decent  coat  nor  a  whole  shirt."  His 
habit  of  dabbling  his  hands  in  water,  while  fol- 
lowing out  a  musical  thought,  until  he  was  thor- 
oughly wet,  cannot  have  improved  his  clothes. 
Nor  did  his  carriage  set  them  off:  he  was  ex- 
tremely awkward  with  his  body — could  not  dance 
in  time,  and  generally  cut  himself  when  he  shaved, 
which,  however,  he  did  infrequently. 

Very  marked  was  his  unconventionality  in  so- 
:ial  relations.  So  profound  was  his  sense  of  per- 
sonal worth  and  of  the  fatuity  of  arbitrary  class- 
listinctions  that  no  aristocrat  ever  regarded  his 
)irth  and  breeding,  no  plutocrat  ever  regarded 
his  wealth,  with  more  intense  pride  than  Bee- 
thoven felt  in  his  democratic  independence  and 
self-sufficiency.  '(That  was  a  characteristic  an- 
swer he  made  the  court,  in  one  of  his  numerous 
law-suits,  when  asked  if  the  "  van  "  in  his  name 
indicated  nobility.  "  My  nobility,"  he  said,  "  is 
here  and  here" — pointing  to  his  head  and  heart. 
When  he  was  offered  a  Prussian  order,  as  a  recog- 
nition of  his  artistic  achievements,  he  preferred 
a  payment  of  fifty  ducats,  and  took  the  oppor- 
tunity to  express  his  contempt  for  some  people's 

268 


BEETHOVEN 


R  longing  and  snapping  after  ribands."  When  his 
brother  Johann,  a  stupid  but  prosperous  world- 
ling, sent  him  a  New  Year's  card  signed  "  Johann 
van  Beethoven,  Land-owner,"  he  returned  it  with 
the  added  inscription  :  "  Ludwig  van  Beethoven, 
Brain-owner."  But  this  wholesome  self-respect, 
the  result  of  a  faith  in  himself  and  a  discrimina- 
tion between  essences  and  accidents  too  rare 
among  men,  sometimes  became  exaggerated  by 
passion  into  an  impatient,  egotistical  pride  less 
pleasant  to  note.  When  the  court  just  men- 
tioned, for  example,  refused,  on  the  ground  of 
his  being  a  commoner,  to  hear  his  case,  he  was 
so  angry  that  he  threatened  to  leave  the  coun- 
try— a  reaction  as  childish  as  it  was  futile.  On 
receiving,  late  in  life,  an  honorary  diploma  from 
the  Society  of  Friends  of  Music  in  the  Austrian 
Empire,  his  impulse  was  to  return  it,  because 
he  had  not  been  earlier  recognized.  Nor  was 
he  inclined  to  forgive  readily  a  fancied  slight  to 
his  dignity  ;  he  was  always  getting  embroiled 
with  his  friends  on  account  of  some  insult  he 
read  into  their  conduct.  He  was  indeed  too  " 
often  the  slave,  instead  of  the  master,  of  his  own/ 
sensitiveness,  and  though  his  point  of  view  as  an 
individualist  was  higher  than  that  of  the  herd,  it 

169 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HTS   FORERUNNERS 

had  its  own  peculiar  limitations.  This  is  clearly- 
illustrated  by  the  following  passage  in  one  of 
his  letters  :  "  Kings  and  princes  can  indeed  cre- 
ate professors  and  privy-councillors,  and  confer 
titles  and  decorations,  but  they  cannot  malcegreat 
men — spirits  that  soar  above  the  base  turmoil 
of  this  world.  When  two  persons  like  Goethe 
and  myself  meet,  these  grandees  cannot  fail  to 
perceive  what  such  as  we  consider  great.  Yes- 
terday, on  our  way  home,  we  met  the  whole  im- 
perial family  ;  we  saw  them  coming  some  way 
off,  when  Goethe  withdrew  his  arm  from  mine, 
in  order  to  stand  aside ;  and  say  what  I  would, 
I  could  not  prevail  on  him  to  make  another  step 
in  advance.  I  pressed  down  my  hat  more  firmly 
on  my  head,  buttoned  up  my  great-coat,  and, 
crossing  my  arms  behind  me,  I  made  my  way 
through  the  thickest  portion  of  the  crowd. 
Princes  and  courtiers  formed  a  lane  for  me ;  Arch- 
duke Rudolph  took  off  his  hat,  and  the  Empress 
bowed  to  me  first.  These  great  ones  of  the  earth 
know  me.  To  my  infinite  amusement,  I  saw  the 
procession  defile  past  Goethe,  who  stood  aside 
with  his  hat  off",  bowing  profoundly.  I  after- 
ward took  him  sharply  to  task  for  this."  In  the 
sort  of  pride  manifested  by  Beethoven  on  this 

270 


BEETHOVEN 


occasion,  there  is  an  element  of  the  hysterical ; 
had  his  sense  of  humor  been  applied  to  himself 
as  well  as  to  his  companion,  he  would  have  been 
"infinitely  amused  "  to  behold  himself,  with  his 
hat  pressed  firmly  on  his  head  and  his  great-coat 
buttoned  up,  demanding  for  the  aristocracy  of 
genius  that  very  servility  which  he  despised 
when  it  was  shown  to  the  aristocracy  of  rank. 
It  was  Beethoven  himself  this  time  who,  misled 
by  an  overweening  pride,  was  hankering  after 
the  accident  when  he  already  possessed  the  es- 
sence. 

Examined  by  and  large,  however,  Beethoven 
does  not  often  disappoint  us  by  failing  to  make 
that  distinction  between  the  nucleus  of  reality 
and  its  swathings  and  accompaniments,  which 
lay  at  the  foundation  of  his  greatness.  Nowhere 
were  his  instinct  for  the  real  and  his  contempt  for 
the  superfluous  more  active  than  in  his  thoughts 
on  religion,  the  deepest  and  most  serious  topic 
on  which  a  man  can  think.  Sturdily  ignoring, 
all  his  life,  the  trappings  of  ritual,  and  the  nar- 
row preciseness,  as  it  seemed  to  him,  of  creeds 
and  theologies,  he  as  resolutely  clung  to  the  es- 
sence of  religion,  the  belief  in  a  universal,  in- 
clusive consciousness,  and  in  the  importance  to 
171 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

it  of  right  human  effort.  On  the  practical  side  his 
religion  was  eminently  positive,  efficient,  sane  ; 
it  prompted  him  to  full  development  of  his  gen- 
ius, without  neglect  of  the  responsibilities  of  or- 
dinary life.  Of  the  metaphysical  side  it  is  a  suf- 
ficient description  to  say  that  there  lay  constantly 
on  his  desk,  copied  by  his  own  hand,  these  sen- 
tences : 

"  I  am  that  which  is. 

"  I  am  all  that  is,  that  was,  and  that  shall  be. 
No  mortal  man  has  lifted  my  veil. 

"  He  is  alone  by  Himself,  and  to  Him  alone 
do  all  things  owe  their  being." 

Combined  with  the  mental  originality,  the 
habit  of  deciding  all  questions  for  himself  and 
as  if  they  had  never  before  received  solutions, 
which  made  Beethoven  so  pronounced  a  non- 
conformist in  all  matters  from  his  toilet  to  his 
religion,  was  a  physical  peculiarity  that  underlay 
much  of  what  was  grotesque  about  him.  This 
was  the  nervous  irritability  inherited  from  his 
grandmother.  His  moodiness,  his  sudden  al- 
ternations of  depressed  and  excited  states,  his 
bursts  of  uncontrollable  anger,  his  wild  pranks 
and  practical  jokes,  were  almost  beyond  doubt 
the  result  of  an  unstable  nervous  system.     So 

%7% 


BEETHOVEN 


restless  was  he  that  he  was  continually  changing 
his  lodgings  ;  once  it  was  because  there  was  not 
enough  sun,  again  because  he  disliked  the  water, 
another  time  because  his  landlord  insisted  on 
making  him  deep  obeisances ;  in  the  later  part 
of  his  life,  when  his  habits  were  well  known,  he 
had  difficulty  in  finding  rooms  anywhere  in  Vi- 
enna. He  put  little  restraint  upon  his  tongue  ; 
Schindler  says  that  "  the  propriety  of  repressing 
offensive  remarks  was  a  thing  that  never  entered 
his  thoughts."  After  hearing  a  concerto  of  Ries, 
he  wrote  a  furious  letter  to  a  musical  paper,  en- 
joining Ries  no  longer  to  call  himself  his  pupil. 
This  his  friends  persuaded  him  not  to  send.  He 
was  so  impatient  that  he  often  took  the  medi- 
cines intended  for  an  entire  day  in  two  doses ; 
so  absent-minded  that  he  often  forgot  them  al- 
together. A  badly  cooked  stew  he  threw  at  the 
waiter,  eggs  that  were  not  fresh  at  the  cook.  To 
a  lady  who  had  asked  for  a  lock  of  his  hair  he 
sent,  at  the  suggestion  of  a  friend,  a  lock  cut  from 
a  goat's  beard  ;  and  when  the  joke  was  discov- 
covered  he  apologized  to  the  lady,  but  cut  off 
all  intercourse  with  the  friend.  An  English  ob- 
server wrote  that  "  One  unlucky  question,  one 
ill-judged  piece  of  advice,  was  sufficient  to  es- 

*73 


BEETHOVEN      AND     HIS     FORERUNNERS 

trange  him  from  you  forever."  Even  on  his 
best  friends  and  his  patrons,  he  wreaked  his  ill- 
humors.  When  Prince  Lobkowitz,  to  whom 
he  owed  much,  had  been  so  unfortunate  as  to 
offend  him,  he  went  into  his  court-yard,  shook 
his  fist  at  the  house,  and  cried  "  Lobkowitz  don- 
key, Lobkowitz  donkey."  It  is  not  hard  to  see 
why  casual  acquaintances,  who  knew  nothing  of 
the  noble  qualities  behind  his  stormy  and  per- 
verse exterior,  frequently  thought  him  mad. 

Nor  will  it  be  difficult,  after  this  brief  sum- 
mary of  Beethoven's  fundamental  traits,  to  un- 
derstand the  formidable  effect  that  deafness, 
coming  upon  him  slowly  but  relentlessly  in  early 
manhood,  when  intellectual  achievement  and 
social  and  personal  happiness  seemed  equally 
attainable,  exercised  upon  his  character.  Natu- 
rally self-dependent,  deafness  made  him  self-ab- 
sorbed; naturally  proud,  it  made  him  so  sensitive 
to  imagined  slights,  so  suspicious  of  even  his 
best  friends,  that  he  would  at  times  refuse  all  in- 
tercourse with  people;  naturally  taking  keenest 
joy  in  intellectual  activity,  this  physical  disa- 
bility forced  him,  while  gradually  renouncing 
social  pleasures,  to  throw  himself  with  ever 
greater  concentration  and  completer  devotion 

*74 


BEETHOVEN 


into  his  work.  All  these  effects  of  his  deafness 
are  clearly  discernible  in  the  letters  written  about 
1 800.  '*  I  can  with  truth  say,"  he  writes  in  that 
year,  "  that  my  life  is  very  wretched ;  for  nearly 
two  years  past  I  have  avoided  all  society,  because 
I  find  it  impossible  to  say  to  people,  I  am  deaf!" 
"  Plutarch,". he  continues,  "led  me  to  resigna- 
tion. I  shall  strive  if  possible  to  set  Fate  at 
defiance,  although  there  must  be  moments  in 
my  life  when  I  cannot  fail  to  be  the  most  un- 
happy of  God's  creatures.  .  .  .  Resignation  ! — 
what  a  miserable  refuge  !  and  yet  it  is  my  sole 
remaining  one."  And  still  later  in  the  same 
letter  :  "  I  live  wholly  in  my  music,  and  scarcely 
is  one  work  finished  when  another  is  begun  ;  in- 
deed, I  am  now  often  at  work  on  three  or  four 
things  at  the  same  time." 

Many  such  passages  occur  in  the  letters  of 
this  period,  but  in  none  does  the  pathetic  ming- 
ling of  almost  despairing  wretchedness  with  a 
noble  courage  that  will  not  despair  become  so 
striking  as  in  the  remarkable  document  known 
as  "  Beethoven's  Will,"  written  to  his  brothers 
in  the  fall  of  1802.  The  summer  had  been  a 
trying  one,  and  at  the  end  of  it  Beethoven,  ap- 
parently half  expecting  and  a  little  desiring  death, 
275 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

yet  dreading  its  interruption  of  his  beloved  work, 
uttered  this  cry  of  pain,  which  deserves  to  be 
quoted  almost  entire : 

Heiligenstadt,  Oct.  6,  1802. 
To  My  Brothers  Carl  and  Johann  Beethoven. 

O  !  you  who  think  or  declare  me  to  be  hostile,  mo- 
rose, and  misanthropical,  how  unjust  you  are,  and  how 
little  you  know  the  secret  cause  of  what  appears  thus 
to  you  !  My  heart  and  mind  were  ever  from  childhood 
prone  to  the  most  tender  feelings  of  affection,  and  I 
was  always  disposed  to  accomplish  something  great. 
But  you  must  remember  that  six  years  ago  I  was  at- 
tacked by  an  incurable  malady,  treated  by  unskilful 
physicians,  deluded  from  year  to  year  by  the  hope  of 
relief,  and  at  length  forced  to  the  conviction  of  a  last- 
ing affliction  (the  cure  of  which  may  go  on  for  years, 
and  perhaps  after  all  prove  impracticable). 

Born  with  a  passionate  and  excitable  temperament, 
keenly  susceptible  to  the  pleasures  of  society,  I  was 
yet  obliged  early  in  life  to  isolate  myself,  and  to  pass 
my  existence  in  solitude.  If  I  at  any  time  resolved 
to  surmount  all  this,  oh !  how  cruelly  was  I  again  re- 
pelled by  the  experience,  sadder  than  ever,  of  my  de- 
fective hearing  ! — and  yet  I  found  it  impossible  to  say 
toothers:  Speak  louder;  shout!  fori  am  deaf!  Alas! 
how  could  I  proclaim  the  deficiency  of  a  sense  which 
ought  to  have  been  more  perfect  with  me  than  with 
other  men, — a  sense  which  I  once  possessed  in  the 

276 


BEETHOVEN 


highest  perfection ;  to  an  extent,  indeed,  that  few  of 
my  profession  ever  enjoyed  !  Alas,  I  cannot  do  this  ! 
Forgive  me  therefore  when  you  see  me  withdraw  from 
you  with  whom  I  would  so  gladly  mingle.  My  mis- 
fortune is  doubly  severe  from  causing  me  to  be  mis- 
understood. .  .  .  Such  things  brought  me  to  the  verge 
of  desperation,  and  well-nigh  caused  me  to  put  an  end 
to  my  life.  Art !  art  alone,  deterred  me.  Ah !  how 
could  I  possibly  quit  the  world  before  bringing  forth 
all  that  I  felt  it  was  my  vocation  to  produce?  And 
thus  I  spared  this  miserable  life — so  utterly  miserable 
that  any  sudden  change  may  reduce  me  at  any  moment 
from  my  best  condition  into  the  worst.  It  is  decreed 
that  I  must  now  choose  Patience  for  my  guide!  This 
I  have  done.  I  hope  the  resolve  will  not  fail  me  stead- 
fastly to  persevere  till  it  may  please  the  inexorable 
Fates  to  cut  the  thread  of  my  life.  ...  I  joyfully 
hasten  to  meet  Death.  If  he  comes  before  I  have  had 
the  opportunity  of  developing  all  my  artistic  powers, 
then,  notwithstanding  my  cruel  fate,  he  will  come  too 
early  forme,  and  I  should  wish  for  him  at  a  more  dis- 
tant period;  but  even  then  I  shall  be  content,  for  his 
advent  will  release  me  from  a  state  of  endless  suffer- 
ing. Come  when  he  may  I  shall  meet  him  with  cour- 
age. Farewell !  Do  not  quite  forget  me,  even  in 
death ;  I  deserve  this  from  you,  because  during  my  life 
I  so  often  thought  of  you,  and  wished  to  make  you 
happy.     Amen.  Ludwig  van  Beethoven. 

277 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

It_Js_ time,  however,  turning  away  from  this 
painful  contemplation  of  a  strong  nature's  strug- 
gle with  adverse  fate,  to  examine  that  artistic 
work  in  which  its  strength  wrought  more  suc- 
cessfully, and  to  which  its  weaknesses  were  less 
disastrous.  Beethoven's  artistic  life,  as  is  well 
known,  has  been  divided  into  three  periods:  that 
of  training  and  assimilation,  which  lasted  to  about 
1803,  that  of  complete  mastery  and  mature  cre- 
ation, occupying  about  a  decade,  and  that  of  ex- 
ploration of  new,  untravelled  paths,  lasting  from 
1 8 13  to  the  end.*  The  division  is  a  conveni- 
ent and  natural  one,  as  will  become  clear  as  we 
go  on. 

In  the  technique  of  his  art,  Beethoven  was 
largely  self-taught.  It  is  true  that  he  had  the 
privilege  of  somellessons  with  Haydn  and  with 
the  famous  theoretician  Albrechtsberger ;  but 
he  was  too  restive  under  strict  surveillance,  and 
too  intolerant  of  hard-and-fast  rules,  to  take 
kindly  to  their  instruction,  and  Albrechtsberger 
v  flatly  said  of  him  :  "  He  will  never  do  anything 
according  to  rule;  he  has  learnt  nothing."  The 
truth  is,  Beethoven  was  too  busy  with  his  own 

*For  a  full  discussion  of  these  "periods,"  see  Lenz's  "  Bee- 
thoven et  ses  trois  styles." 

278 


BEETHOVEN 


problems,  the  problems  of  structure  and  expres- 
sion, to  pay  the  requisite  attention  to  the  intri- 
cacies of  counterpoint,  which  he  never  really  mas- 
tered. What  he  tried  to  do,  however,  he  did 
thoroughly.  All  the  works  of  his  first  period, 
of  which  the  most  important  are  the  pianoforte 
sonatas  up  to  the  u  Waldstein,"  the  first  three 
pianoforte  concertos,  the  String  Quartets,  Opus 
1 8,  and  the  First  and  Second  Symphonies,  show 
him  in  the  'prentice  stage,  learning  to  treat  com- 
petently the  sonata  form  and  the  secular  style 
inherited  from  Haydn  and  Mozart.  The  First 
Symphony,  in  spite  of  its  dignified  proportions, 
is  essentially  an  exercise  in  acquisition.  The  Sec- 
ond, which  is  the  most  important  single  work  of 
the  entire  period,  is,  as  Grove  says,  an  advance 
rather  "  in  dimensions  and  style,  and  in  the  won- 
derful fire  and  force  of  the  treatment,  than  in 
any  really  new  ideas,  such  as  its  author  afterwards 
introduced."  It  is  in  the  four  movements  pre- 
scribed by  tradition,  except  that  a  Scherzo  is 
substituted  for  the  minuet.  Its  phraseology  and 
harmony  recall  the  older  manner.  The  themes 
of  the  opening  Allegro  are  built  up  out  of  short, 
precise  phrases,  exactly  balancing  one  another, 
as  will  be  vividly  realized  by  anyone  who  will 

*79 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS  FORERUNNERS 

compare  the  first  theme  with  the  corresponding 
subject  in  the  Third  Symphony,  so  much  freer 
and  more  ingenious  in  contour.  The  transitions 
are  somewhat  perfunctory.  The  second  subject 
appears  regularly  in  the  dominant  key.  The 
development,  in  comparison  with  that  of  Bee- 
thoven's later  work,  is  mechanical,  obvious,  trite. 
In  every  wayhe  is  still, in  the  Second  Symphony, 
sitting  at  the  feet  of  his  predecessors,  learning 
patiently,  minutely,  what  they  have  to  teach  him. 
As  Grove  well  says  :  "  This  symphony  is  the 
culminating  point  of  the  old,  pre-Revolution 
world,  the  world  of  Haydn  and  Mozart ;  it  was 
the  farthest  point  to  which  Beethoven  could  go 
before  he  burst  into  that  wonderful  new  region 
into  which  no  man  before  had  penetrated."* 

The  indebtedness  of  the  early  Beethoven  to 
his  immediate  forerunners,  and  the  untiring 
pains  he  took  to  learn  his  lesson  thoroughly, 
call  for  especial  emphasis  because  so  much  has 
been  said  and  written  of  his  originality,  his  dis- 
regard for  conventions,  his  non-conforming,  rev- 
olutionary tendencies.  He  was  indeed  an  anarch 
of  outworn  conventions,  but  he  was  anything  but 

*  The  foregoing  quotations  from   Grove  are  to  be  found  in 
his  "Beethoven  and  His  Nine  Symphonies." 

280 


BEETHOVEN 


an  anarch  of  art.  No  man  ever  recognized  more 
cordially  his  inherited  resources  ;  no  man  was 
ever  less  misled  by  a  petty  ideal  of  mere  oddness, 
by  a  confusion  of  idiosyncrasy  with  originality s 
Beethoven  was  a  great  individual  because  he 
assimilated  the  strength  of  all  humanity.  His 
originality,  like  all  originality  that  has  value, 
consisted  in  a  fresh,  sincere  expression  of  uni- 
^,-versal  truths  through  the  best  technical  means 
which  were  available  in  his  day.  J  If  any  reader 
has  a  lingering  doubt  of  Beethoven's  faithfulness 
as  a  student,  he  need  but  examine  the  Sketch- 
books edited  by  Nottebohm  from  the  original 
manuscript  note-books  in  which  Beethoven  la- 
boriously worked  out  his  conceptions.  Quite 
tireless  was  he  in  the  manipulation  of  a  theme, 
over  and  over  again,  until  it  suited  his  rigorous 
taste ;  truly  wonderful  is  the  ever-sensitive  dis- 
crimination with  which  he  excised  redundancies, 
softened  crudities,  enhanced  beauties, and  refined 
texture,  until  at  last  the  melody  was  as  perfect, 
as  inevitable,  as  organic,  as  a  sentence  by  Flau- 
bert, Sir  Thomas  Browne,  or  Cardinal  Newman. 
It  was  indeed  precisely  by  these  qualities  of 
the  conscientious  artist  that  Beethoven  was 
chiefly  enabled  to  push  his  work  to  a  higher 
281 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

stage  of  interest  than  his  forerunners  had  at- 
tained. He  went  obediently  as  far  as  they  could 
lead  him  before  attempting  to  push  further 
alone.  We  find,  even  in  this  Second  Symphony, 
conceptions  that  Haydn  and  Mozart  could  not 
have  imagined ;  but  these  are  worked  out  with 
a  skill  and  ingenuity  like  theirs  in  kind,  if 
greater  in  degree.  The  most  striking  and  per- 
vasive difference  lies  in  the  immensely  increased 
closeness  of  texture,  intensity  of  meaning,  logic, 
vigor,  poignancy.'.  All  the  strings  are  tightened, 
and  flabbiness,  diffuseness,  meaningless  orna- 
ment and  filling  are  swept  away.  As  Beethoven's 
self-assurance,  habit  of  examining  all  conven- 
tions for  himself,  and  relentless  discrimination 
of  the  essence  from  the  accident,  already  noted, 
made  him  in  society  a  brief  but  pregnant  talker, 
an  eccentric  but  true  man,  so  they  made  him  a 
forcible,  concise,  and  logical  musician.  How 
ruthlessly  he  discards  the  merely  pretty,  the 
sensuously  tickling,  the  amiably  vapid  and 
pointless  !  He  wastes  no  energy  in  preamble, 
interlude,  or  peroration.  He  puts  in  his  out- 
line in  a  few  bold,  right  strokes,  leaving  much 
to  the  intelligence  of  his  hearers.  Concentrating 
his  whole  mind  on  a  single  thought,  he  follows 

181 


BEETHOVEN 


it  out  relentlessly  to  the  end,  will  not  be  dis- 
tracted or  seduced  into  side-issues.  He  toler- 
ates no  superfluous  tones  in  his  fabric,  but 
makes  it  compact,  close,  rigorously  thematic. 
The  expanses  of  the  music  stretch  out  broad 
and  sequential,  the  climaxes  unfold  deliberately, 
gather  force  and  body  like  a  rising  sea.  Look 
through  the  long,  complex  development  sec- 
tion of  the  Allegro  of  the  Second  Symphony, 
and  note  its  fine  economy  of  means,  its  surpris- 
ing grandeur  of  effect ;  see  how  two  or  three 
motifs  are  made  to  flower  out  into  the  most 
luxuriant  forms,  and  how  a  page  can  be  educed 
from  a  measure.  This  is  what  is  meant  by  the- 
matic development,  which  no  man  thoroughly 
understood  before  Beethoven. 

This  insistent  coherence  and  sequaciousness 
is  kept  from  becoming  tiresome  or  monotonous 
by  the  variety  of  the  themes  themselves  and  of 
the  modes  adopted  for  developing  them.  In- 
deed, so  consummately  is  the  fundamental  pro- 
gressiveness  hidden  under  a  variegated  and  ever- 
changing  surface  that  the  casual  observer  is  apt 
to  be  impressed  chiefly  by  the  sudden  novelties 
of  effect,  the  unexpected  alternations  of  loud 
and  soft,  the  collocation  of  contrasted  rhythms, 

283 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

the  prominence  given  to  distant  tonalities  by 
modulation,  in  Beethoven's  work,  and  to  real- 
ize its  solidity  and  balance  only  after  a  more 
careful  study.  Rhythmical  variety  alone  in  Bee- 
thoven is  so  perpetual  and  so  ingenious  that  a 
large  treatise  would  hardly  suffice  to  describe  it. 
Short,  nervous  phrases  of  half-a-measure  length 
alternate  with  wide  expanses  where  for  four 
or  more  measures  there  is  not  so  much  as  a 
comma.*  Motifs  longer  or  shorter  than  the 
measure  are  so  adjusted  as  to  make  up  consid- 
erable passages  in  which  the  accent  constantly 
changes.*]*  Diminutions  and  augmentations  of 
motifs  are  deftly  used.!  ^n  ways  too  numer- 
ous to  mention  Beethoven  introduces  life  into 
his  work  by  constant  variation  of  rhythmic 
grouping. 

As  for  harmonic  variety,  his  daring  was  such 
as  to  scandalize  all  the  conservatives  of  his 
generation.     The  First  Symphony  opens  with 

*E.  g.  Second  Symphony:  Larghetto  :  passage  immediately 
preceding  the  Restatement  section. 

-j-E.  g.  Second  Symphony:  Larghetto  :  passage  at  the  end  of 
the  second  subject.  A  motif  of  four  sixteenth-notes  in  ^ 
measure. 

JE.  g.   Second  Symphony  :  Finale:  passage  of  half-notes  i 
coda  augmented  later  to  whole  notes. 

»84 


BEETHOVEN 


a  passage  of  which  Grove  writes  :  "  That  a 
composition  professing  to  be  in  the  key  of  C 
should  begin  with  a  discord  in  the  key  of  F, 
and  by  the  third  bar  be  in  that  of  G,  was  surely 
startling  enough  to  ears  accustomed  to  the  reg- 
ular processes  of  that  time."  The  passage  did 
in  fact  meet  with  strong  opposition  from  such 
critics  as  Preindl,  Abbe  Stadler,  and  Dionys 
Weber.  In  the  Second  Symphony  there  are 
many  foretastes  of  the  radical  harmonic  meth- 
ods Beethoven  later  developed.  Returning  to 
his  Restatement  section,  for  instance,  in  the  first 
movement,  the  key  of  which  is  D,  he  reaches 
the  very  remote  key  of  C-sharp  major,  which 
he  emphasizes  by  a  long  reiteration  of  its  tonic 
chord,  forte,  lasting  six  full  measures.  Then, 
with  a  diminuendo,  a  long  C-sharp,  in  unison, 
is  held  until,  by  the  addition  of  an  A,  we  are 
made  to  feel  that  this  C-sharp  has  become  a 
leading-note  in  the  original  key  of  D,  and  so 
we  are  home  again.*  The  coda  of  the  same 
movement  contains  one  of  those  rapid,  kaleid- 
oscopic modulations  through  many  keys  which 

*  Compare  what  is  said  on  page  207,  of  the  harmonic  device 
used  by  Haydn  to  introduce  the  last  entrance  of  the  theme  in 
the  Finale  of  his  Fifth  Salomon  Symphony. 

285 


BEETHOVEN      AND     HIS     FORERUNNERS 

Beethoven  knows  how  to  use  so  excitingly.  In 
eleven  measures  we  are  bundled  through  G,  B- 
flat,  A-minor,  B-flat  again,  C-minor,  E-flat 
minor,  F-sharp  minor,  and  E,  and  after  it  all 
find  ourselves  quite  breathless,  but  safely  home 
again  in  D.  Many  similar  passages  of  har- 
monic virtuosity  are  to  be  found  in  the  Second 
Symphony ;  and  they  show  Beethoven  feeling 
his  way  toward  the  wonderful  flexibility  of  his 
later  harmonic  style. 

•  In  his  early  thirties,  then,  at  the  close  of  his 
^>'  'apprenticeship  or  period  of  acquisition  of  re- 
sources and  establishment  of  technique,  Bee- 
thoven had  in  the  first  place  thoroughly  assim- 
ilated the  sonata-form  developed  by  his  fore- 
runners as  the  most  convenient  and  "natural 
medium  for  the  expression  of  the  free,  direct, 
and  widely  eclectic  secular  spirit  in  music.  He 
had,  in  the  second  place,  raised  this  form  to 
higher  potencies  of  beauty  and  expressiveness, 
by  rigorous  exclusion  of  what  was  superfluous 
and  inorganic  in  it,  by  purification  of  its  texture 
and  strengthening  of  its  essential  structural  fea- 
tures, and  by  introduction  into  it,  through  the 
power  of  his  genius  for  composition,  of  more 
subtle  and   more  thoroughgoing    contrasts  of 

286 


BEETHOVEN 


rhythm,  harmony,  and  general  expressive  char- 
acter.,. jlStill  he  was  not  content.  His  soaring 
idealism  demanded  a  still  greater  flexibility  of 
form,  as  well  as  a  more  intense  and  intimate 
utterance  of  feeling.  "  I  am  not  satisfied,"  he 
wrote  in  1 802,  "  with  my  works  up  to  the  pres- 
ent time.  From  to-day  I  mean  to  take  a  new 
road."  What  that  road  was,  what  superstruc- 
ture he  proceeded  to  build  on  so  solid  a  foun- 
dation, we  must  now  try  to  determine. 


*87 


CHAPTER    VIII 
BEETHOVEN 

(continued) 


CHAPTER    VIII 
BEETHOVEN 

(continued) 


* 


— f  I  STORY  and   analytic   thought 

H  alike  reveal  the  fact  that  the  high- 
est pinnacles  of  art  can  be  scaled 
only  at  those  happy  moments 
— 1 1  when  favoring  conditions  of  two 
distinct  kinds  happen  to  coincide.  The  artist 
who  is  to  attain  supreme  greatness  must  in  the 
first  place  have  at  his  command  a  type  of  artistic 
technique  that  has  already  been  developed  to  the 
verge  of  maturity,  but  that  still  awaits  its  com- 
plete efflorescence.  As  Sir  Hubert  Parry  wel 
says  :  "  Inspiration  without  methods  and  mean., 
at  its  disposal  will  no  more  enable  a  man  to  write 
a  symphony  than  to  build  a  ship  or  a  cathedral." 
These  means  must  be  already  highly  developed, 
yet  not  to  the  point  of  exhaustion.  If  the  tech- 
nique is  primitive,  no  ardor  of  artistic  enthusi- 

191 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

asm  can  reach  through  it  a  full  utterance  ;  if  all 
its  potencies  have  been  actualized,  no  inspiration 
can  reanimate  it. 

In  the  second  place,  the  artist  so  happy  as  to 
inherit  a  technique  ripe  but  not  over-ripe,  must 
also,  if  he  is  to  attain  supreme  greatness,  be  in 
unison  with  the  thought  and  feeling  of  his  age, 
echo  from  the  common  mind  of  his  fellows  a 
deep,  broad,  and  universal  eloquence,  as  though 
.til  mankind  spoke  through  him  as  mouthpiece. 
He  must  live  in  the  midst  of  some  great  gen- 
eral awakening  of  the  human  spirit,  to  which  he 
lends  voice.  Merely  personal  art  can  be  inter- 
esting, graceful,  charming,  moving,  noble,  but  it 
cannot  have  the  profundity,  the  breadth,  the  ele- 
vation, which  we  recognize  in  the  highest  art, 
such  as  Greek  sculpture,  Elizabethan  drama,  or 
the  symphonic  music  we  are  now  studying.  M  A 
great  man,"  says  Emerson,  "  finds  himself  in  the 
river  of  the  thoughts  and  events,  forced  onward 
by  the  ideas  and  necessities  of  his  contempo- 
raries. He  stands  where  all  the  eyes  of  men  look 
one  way,  and  their  hands  all  point  in  the  direc- 
tion in  which  he  should  go.  Every  master  has 
found  his  materials  collected,  and  his  power  lay 
in  his  sympathy  with  his  people  and  in  his  love 
*9* 


BEETHOVE  N C  ONTINUED 

of  the  materials  he  wrought  in.  Men,  nations, 
poets,  artisans,  women,  all  have  worked  for  him, 
and  he  enters  into  their  labors."  * 

When  Beethoven  resolved  on  his  "  new  path," 
his  ambition  was  favored  by  the  two  necessary 
conditions.  That  he  had  at  his  command  an  in- 
herited technique,  just  brought  to  the  verge  of 
maturity,  we  have  already  seen.  And  he  had 
furthermore,  behind  and  below  him,  as  a  rich 
nourishing  soil  for  his  genius,  a  great,  new,  com- 
mon enthusiasm  of  humanity. 

The  eighteenth  century  had  been  a  time  of 
formalism  in  art  and  literature,  of  rigid  conven- 
tionality in  social  life,  of  paternalism  in  politics, 
and  of  dogmatic  ecclesiastical  authority  in  re- 
ligion. At  its  end,  however,  all  those  dim,  half- 
conscious  efforts  of  humanity  towards  freer  and 
fuller  life  which  we  have  indicated  under  the 
general  term  of  idealism,  were  beginning  to  reach 
definiteness  and  self-consciousness.  Men  were 
beginning  to  assert  deliberately  and  openly 
what  they  had  long  been  feeling  intuitively 
but  insecurely.  They  were  boldly  erasing  from 
their  standards  the  mediaeval  formula  :  "  Pov- 
erty, celibacy,  and  obedience,"  to  write  in  its 

*"  Representative  Men,"  Riverside  ed.,  p.  182. 
*93 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

place  the  modern  one  :  "  Life,  liberty,  and  the 
pursuit  of  happiness."  They  were  revolting 
from  the  tyrannies  of  Church  and  State,  to  pro- 
claim the  sacredness  of  the  individual  soul. 

Jit  was  Beethoven's  high  privilege  to  be  the 
artistic  spokesman  of  this  new,  enfranchised  hu- 
manity. Haydn,  as  we  know,  had  reflected  for 
the  first  time  in  music  the  universal  interest  in 
all  kinds  of  human  emotion,  sacred  and  profane, 
that  marked  the  dawn  of  the  new  era.  But  in  his 
music  the  emotion  remains  naive,  impulsive, 
childlike ;  it  has  not  taken  on  the  earnestness, 
the  sense  of  responsibility,  of  manhoody  It  is 
still  in  the  spontaneous  stage,  has  not  become 
deliberate,  resolute,  purposeful.  But  with  Bee- 
thoven childishness  is  put  away,  and  the  new 
spirit  steps  boldly  out  into  the  world,  aware  of 
its  obligations  as  well  as  of  its  privileges,  clear- 
eyed,  sad,  and  serious,  to  live  the  full  yet  diffi- 
cult life  of  freedom.^ 

The  closeness  of  Beethoven's  relation  to  the 
idealistic  spirit  of  his  time  is  shown  equally  by 
two  distinct  yet  supplementary  aspects  of  his 
work.  As  it  was  characteristic  of  the  idealism 
which  fed  him  to  set  supreme  store  by  human 
emotion  in  all  its  intensity  and  diversity,  so  it  is 
294 


BEETHOVE  N C  ONTINUED 

characteristic  of  his  music  to  voice  emotion  with 
a  fullness,  poignancy,  definiteness,  and  variety 
that  sharply  contrast  it  with  the  more  formal 
decorative  music  of  his  forerunners.  And  as  it 
was  equally  characteristic  of  idealism  to  recog- 
nize the  responsibilities  of  freedom,  to  restrain 
and  control  all  particular  emotions  in  the  inter- 
est of  a  balanced  spiritual  life,  so  it  was  equally 
characteristic  of  Beethoven  to  hold  all  his  mar- 
velous emotional  expressiveness  constantly  in 
subordination  to  the  integral  effect  of  his  com- 
position as  a  whole,  to  value  plastic  beauty 
even  more  highly  than  eloquent  appeal  to  feel- 
ing. In  other  words,  Beethoven  the  musician 
is  equally  remarkable  forty£0_qualities,  eloquence 
of  expression  and  beauty  of  form,  which  in  his 
best  work  are  always  held  in  an  exact  and  firmly 
controlled  balance.  And  if  we  would  fully  un- 
derstand his  supremacy,  we  must  perceive  not 
only  his  achievements  in  both  directions,  but 
the  high  artistic  power  with  which  he  correlates 
them.  Just  as  the  courage  to  insist  on  the  rights 
of  the  individual,  and  the  wisdom  to  recognize 
and  support  the  rights  of  others,  are  the  two 
essentials  of  true  idealism,  so  eloquence  and 
beauty  are  the  equal  requisites  of  genuine  art. 

*9S 


BEETHOVEN      AND       HIS      FORERUNNERS 

So  closely  interwoven,  so  mutually  reactive, 
are  these  twin  merits  of  expression  and  form  in 
the  great  works  of  Beethoven's  prime — in  the 
pianoforte  sonatas  from  the  Waldstein  to  Opus 
90,  in  the  String  Quartets,  Opus  59  and  74,  in 
the  fourth  and  fifth  piano  concertos  and  the 
unique  concerto  for  violin,  in  the  Overture  to 
"Coriolanus,"  theincidental  music  to"  Egmont," 
and  the  opera,  "  Fidelio,"  in  the  Mass  in  C,  and 
above  all  in  the  six  great  symphonies  from  the 
"  Eroica  "  to  the  Eighth — that  it  seems  like 
wanton  violence  and  falsification  to  separate 
them,  even  for  the  purposes  of  study.  Synthesis, 
at  any  rate,  should  go  hand  in  hand  with  analy- 
sis ;  we  should  constantly  remember  that  the 
various  qualities  our  critical  reagents  discern  in 
this  music,  exist  in  it  not,  as  in  our  analysis, 
single  and  detached,  but  fused  and  interpenetra- 
tive in  one  artistic  whole.  The  chemist  may  find 
carbon,  and  hydrogen,  and  oxygen  in  the  rose, 
but  a  rose  is  something  more,  something  inef- 
fably more,  than  a  compound  of  these  chemical 
elements. 

If,  bearing  constantly  in  mind  the  artificiality 
of  analysis,  we  nevertheless  attempt  an  enumera- 
tion of  separate  qualities  in  Beethoven's  mature 

996 


BEETHOVE  N C  ONTINUED 


work,  we  are  first  of  all  arrested  by  the  vigor, 
definiteness,  and  variety  of  his  expression.  In 
his  symphonies  from  the  Eroica  on,  for  example, 
there  is  a  far  more  direct  and  poignant  utterance 
of  a  wide  range  of  feeling,  than  we  can  find  any- 
where in  Haydn  or  Mozart,  or  in  the  early 
Beethoven.  The  first  "  subjects  "  of  the  Third, 
Fifth,  Seventh  and  Eighth  Symphonies,  shown 
in  Figure  XX,  illustrate  strikingly,  brief  as  they 

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are,  this  diversity  and  force  of  the  works  of  the 
middle  period.  Who  that  had  once  heard  them 
could  ever  forget  them  ?     And  who  could  ever 


297 


/ 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

confuse  one  with  another?  How  they  pierce 
through  the  veil  of  the  past,  with  their  vibrant 
accent  of  the  living,  breathing  man! 

Beethoven's  subjects,  attaining  so  wonderful 
a  degree  of  individualization,  mark  the  culmi- 
nating point  of  a  long  process  of  crystallization 
of  definite  forms  out  of  the  tonal  matrix  of 
earlier  music.  Ever  since  the  Florentine  re- 
formers essayed  to  infuse  into  academic  art  the 
human  expressiveness  of  idealized  popular 
songs  and  dances,  the  latent  potentialities  of 
vocal  phrases  to  express  earnest  emotion,  and 
of  vigorous  rhythms  to  express  the  more  ac- 
tive and  animated  feelings,  had  been  becom- 
ing more  and  more  fully  utilized.  We  saw 
how  the  popular  songs  were  embodied  and 
transfigured  in  the  sarabandes  and  other  sl«w, 
serious  movements  of  the  eighteenth  century 
suites,  and  how  the  rhythms  of  the  popular 
dances  were  wrought  into  their  idealized  ga- 
vottes, bourrees,  minuets,  and  gigues.*  We 
saw  how  Haydn,  in  his  naive  yet  skillful  way, 
seized  upon  and  refined  the  primitive  but  emo- 
tionally vital  folk-music  of  his  race.f  We 
saw  how  Mozart  contributed  still  further,  by 

•See  Chap.  III.,  p.  118.     -j-See  Chap.  V.,  p.  199. 
298 


BEETHOVE  N C  ONTINUED 

his  wonderful  genius  for  organization,  to  the 
progress  in  delicacy,  variety,  and  breadth,  of 
the  same  type  of  art.  And  now  we  see,  in  Bee- 
thoven, the  issue  of  this  long  growth:  we  see 
him  bring  to  their  apotheosis  the  eloquence  of 
the  song  and  the  animation  of  the  dance ;  we 
see  him,  by  full  utilization  of  the  harmonic  and 
rhythmic  potentialities  of  structure,  by  vigorous 
exclusion  of  the  irrelevant  and  the  superfluous, 
by  full  concentration  of  all  his  faculties  of  heart 
and  mind  on  the  one  idea  in  hand,  attaining  a 
definiteness,  a  variety,  and  a  compelling  elo- 
quence of  expression,  that  may  fairly  be  said  to 
mark  an  epoch.  Before  Beethoven  music  was 
already  an  art ;  with  him  it  becomes  also  a  lan- 
guage. 

The  variety  of  what  Beethoven  has  to  say  is 
as  remarkable  as  the  precision  and  force  with 
which  he  says  it.  To  study  him  is  to  discern 
the  fallacy  of  the  view  so  often  heard  that  sen- 
timental expression  is  the  only  kind  possible  to 
music.  In  Beethoven  one  can  observe  at  least 
four  well-contrasted  general  types  of  express- 
iveness, to  say  nothing  of  the  infinite  gradations 
between  them.  There  is,  in  the  first  place,  and 
as  perhaps  the  dominant  quality  in  all  his  work, 

299 


H 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 


the  virile  energy,  the  massive  and  cyclopean 
power,  as  of  a  giant  or  a  god,  so  well  illustrated 
in  the  symphonic  subjects  of  Figure  XX. 
What  vigor,  what  inexhaustible  force,  what  a 
morning  freshness  and  joy  there  is  in  such  a 
theme  as  that  of  the  "  Eroica "  Symphony  ! 
How  inexorable  is  its  rhythm,  how  broad,  solid, 
and  simple  its  harmonic  foundation  !  What 
controlled  excitement,  what  restrained  ferocity, 
there  is  in  that  persistent  four-tone  motif  of 
the  Fifth  Symphony — "  Fate  knocking  at  the 
door  "  !  What  swift,  concise  assertiveness,  as 
in  the  fiat  of  an  emperor,  in  the  opening  of  the 
Eighth  Symphony,  though  it  was  called  by  Bee- 
thoven "  my  little  one  "  !  Elemental  strength 
is  the  most  constant,  pervasive  quality  of  ex- 
pression in  Beethoven's  work. 

Yet,  like  every  comprehensively  great  man 
he  had  the'feminine  tenderness  and  sentiment 
without  which  primal  power  is  primitive,  and 
will  mere  willfulness.  His  ruggedness  hid  the 
most  delicate  sensibility.  At  his  most  heroic 
moments  he  is  always  melting  into  moods  of 
wistfulness,  yearning,  and  soft  emotion.  To 
go  for  illustration  no  further  than  the  sympho- 
nies, it  is  sufficient  to  mention,  in  the  "Eroica," 


300 


BEETHOVE  N C  O  N  T  I  N  U  E  D 

the  hesitant  fervor  of  the  second  subject  of  the 
first  movement ;  the  deep  and  noble  pathos  of  the 
subject  of  the  Funeral  March;  the  clear  and  rich 
emotion  of  the  Trio  (in  the  third  movement), 
with  its  wonderful  final  strains,  of  which  Sir 
George  Grove  said  :  "  If  ever  horns  talked  like 
flesh  and  blood,  they  do  it  here  f  in  the  Fifth 
Symphony,  the  poignant  appeal  of  the  second 
subject  of  the  first  movement,  and  the  cease- 
lessly questing,  gently  insistent  mood  of  the 
Andante ;  and  in  the  Seventh,  the  resigned,  yet 
still  aspiring  state  of  feeling  voiced  by  the  mel- 
ody in  A-major  in  the  Allegretto.  But  it  is  im- 
possible to  do  more  than  shadow  forth  dimly, 
in  words,  the  emotions  that  glow  with  such  deep 
color  in  this  music.  Moreover,  to  enumerate 
them  is  as  unnecessary  as  it  is  thankless.  Every 
one  who  knows  music  at  all,  knows  how  incom- 
parable is  Beethoven  in  the  expression  of  all 
shades  of  tender,  romantic,  and  impassioned 
human  feeling. 

A  third  sort  of  expression  characteristic  of 
Beethoven  is  that  of  the  whimsical,  the  perverse, 
the  irrepressibly  gay.  Before  him,  the  classical 
symphony  had  had  room  for  the  brisk  jollity  of 
the  Haydn  finale  and  for  the  forthright  ani- 
301: 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

mation  of  the  Mozart  minuet ;  but  nothing  like 
the  Beethoven  scherzo  had  existed.  In  Italian 
the  word  scherzo  means  a  joke ;  and  when  he 
substituted  the  rollicking  scherzo  for  the  more 
formal  and  stately  minuet  Beethoven  intro- 
duced into  music  the  element  of  banter,  mis- 
chief, and  whimsy.  Even  among  his  several 
scherzos,  there  is  such  a  diversity  of  mood  that 
they  introduce  into  music  far  more  than  one  new 
kind  of  expression  ;  their  fancy  is  protean,  in- 
exhaustible. The  scherzo  of  the  "  Eroica"  is  a 
mixture  of  mystery,  gaiety,  and  headlong  elan; 
in  that  of  the  Fifth  Symphony,  a  sort  of  grop- 
ing as  in  darkness  alternates  with  incisive,  grand- 
iose, military  boldness  ;  in  the  middle  Allegro  of 
the  Pastoral  Symphony,  taking  the  place  of  the 
scherzo,  there  is  rustic  merry-making,  the  awk- 
ward, good-natured  gambols  of  peasants ;  in 
the  Presto  of  the  Seventh,  there  is  upwelling 
geniality,  the  broad  smile  of  amiable  indolence; 
and  in  the  Minuet  of  the  Eighth,  the  old 
minuet  stateliness  gives  place  to  a  mixture  of 
animal  spirits  and  intellectual  subtlety.  Nor  are 
the  scherzos  proper  the  only  embodiment  of 
the  antics  of  this  musical  Pan  ;  such  Finales  as 
those  of  the  Fourth,  Seventh,  and  Eighth  Sym- 
30* 


BEETHOVE  N C  O  N  T  I  N  U  E  D 

phonies  are  but  transfigured,  ennobled  scherzos, 
with  the  largeness  of  the  heroic  spirit  added  to 
the  fancy,  whim,  and  tireless  merriment  of  the 
insatiable  humorist.  Beethoven  is  the  extreme 
exponent  of  the  spirit  of  comedy  in  music. 

A  fourth  mood  distinguishable  in  Beethoven 
is  the  mood  of  mystery.  He  loves  to  suggest 
the  illimitable  and  the  transcendent,  to  dissolve 
himself  in  vagueness ;  to  pique  curiosity  and 
stimulate  imagination  by  long  stretches  of  pia- 
nissimo, of  amorphous,  ambiguous  harmony, 
of  strange  inarticulate  melody  that  baffles  the 
attention — long,  wide  hushes,  audible  silences. 
In  these  moods  he  seems  to  retire,  after  his  on- 
slaughts of  expression,  into  the  deep  subterra- 
nean reservoirs  of  the  unexpressed.  The  In- 
troduction to  the  Fourth  Symphony  is  an  ex- 
ample ;  one  hears  in  it,  as  it  were,  the  groping 
of  vast  unorganized  impulses  that  await  a  birth. 
The  extended  pianissimo  passage  that  leads  into 
the  Reprise,  in  the  same  movement,  makes  a 
similar  impression,  the  modulation  to  the  home- 
key  of  B-flat,  after  the  long  groping  in  B-ma- 
jor,  seeming  like  the  opening  of  a  window  in  a 
darkened  room.  The  wide  stretches  of  rippling 
violin    figures,  piano,  in  the   "  Scene   by    the 

303 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS  FORERUNNERS 

Brook "  of  the  Pastoral  Symphony  illustrate 
another  use  of  this  device  of  monotony.  They 
affect  the  mind,  as  Beethoven  meant  they 
should,  like  a  placid  sun-bathed  landscape  at 
noon,  flat,  silent,  motionless.  But  perhaps  the 
most  striking  instance  of  all  is  that  wonderful 
page  in  the  Fifth  Symphony  that  prepares  for 
the  Finale.  The  sustained  C's  of  the  strings, 
the  suppressed,  barely  audible  tapping  of  the 
drums  in  the  rhythm  of  the  central  motif  of 
the  work,  the  fragmentary,  aimless,  and  yet  cu- 
mulative phrases  of  the  violins,  instil  a  sense  of 
some  vast  catastrophe  impending ;  and  then, 
after  the  deliberate,  gradual  crescendo,  pressing 
upon  every  nerve,  the  great  joyous  theme  of  the 
Finale  crashes  in,  to  sweep  all  before  it. 

Marvelous  indeed  is  this  varied  and  ever 
forcible  expression  of  feeling  in  the  great  works 
of  Beethoven's  maturity;  but  even  more  marvel- 
ous is  the  steady  power  by  which  he  organizes 
these  feelings  into  forms  of  perfect  beauty,  the 
unfaltering  control  by  which  he  keeps  the  in- 
tensely characteristic  from  degenerating  into 
caricature,  the  impassioned  from  becoming  hys- 
terical. He  never  forgets  that,  as  an  artist,  he  is 
the  master,  not  the  slave,  of  his  inspiration,  how- 
304 


BEETHOVE  N C  O  N  T  I  N  U  E  D 

ever  seizing  it  may  be.  Though  he  infuses  into 
music  an  eloquence  new  to  it,  he  remembers  that 
it  is  still  music,  and  that  it  must  be  beautiful  as 
music.  Titanic  were  the  labors  he  imposed  upon 
himself  to  give  his  compositions  balance,  sym- 
metry, logical  coherence,  integral  unity  emerging 
from  an  infinite  variety  of  parts.  His  sketch- 
books, several  of  which,  edited  by  Nottebohm, 
have  been  published  by  Breitkopf  and  Hartel, 
are  the  standing  evidence  of  what  endless  ef- 
fort it  cost  him  to  be  an  artist.  In  them  we 
behold  him  at  work,  day  by  day,  eliminating 
the  irrelevant,  reenforcing  the  significant,  ex- 
ploring the  sources  of  melodic,  rhythmic,  har- 
monic, and  structural  variety,  and  returning 
upon  his  task  to  gather  up  all  the  threads  into 
one  complete,  close-woven  fabric.  The  result 
was  a  type  of  music  seldom  equalled,  before  or 
since,  for  that  ordered  richness,  that  complex 
simplicity,  which  is  beauty. 

An  example  or  two  will  make  this  clearer 
than  much  description.  The  first  subject  of  the 
Fifth  Symphony,  one  of  the  most  famous  of 
Beethoven's  themes,  is  entirely  made  up  of  in- 
genious combinations  of  the  "  Fate  Knocking 
at  the  Door"  motif,  as  follows: 

3°5 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 


Figure  XXI.     Allegro  con  brio. 

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How  wonderful  here  is  the  stern  and  relentless 
logic  of  that  insistently  repeated  rhythm,  the 
utter  naturalness  of  the  melody  which  builds  it- 
self out  of  the  various  repetitions  of  the  theme  in 
different  voices,  and  the  rugged  strength  of  the 
harmonic  scheme  of  the  entire  passage  !  Had 
we  not  documentary  evidence,  we  should  find 
it  hard  to  believe  that  this  was  not  a  sudden 
and  complete  thought,  struck  out  by  Beetho- 
ven at  a  blow  in  some  moment  of  high  musical 
excitement.  Yet  his  sketch-book  reveals  that 
it  grew  by  a  very  gradual  process  of  amendment 
and  refining  from  the  monotonous,  uninterest- 
ing, almost  fatuous  bit  of  patchwork  shown  in 
Figure  XXII.  Another,  slightly  more  ad- 
vanced, state  of  the  same  idea  is  shown  in  Figure 
XXIII.  In  both  these  passages  the  rhythm 
is  almost  the  only  element  that  even  dimly  sug- 

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The  well-known  and  universally  admired 
subject  of  the  Andante  of  the  Fifth  Symphony 
is  another  illustration  of  Beethoven's  artistic 
power.  That  was  a  rare  skill  indeed  which 
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309 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 


Figure  XXIV.     Andante  con  moto. 


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The  evolution  of  Beethoven's  almost  perfect 
ideas  from  their  strangely  featureless  and  unin- 
testing  germs  can  perhaps  be  shown  best  of  all, 
however,  by  the  citation  of  several  consecutive 
stages  in  the  history  of  some  single  notable  con- 
ception. The  indescribably  lovely  second  sub- 
ject of  the  first  movement  of  the  Eroica  Sym- 


310 


BEETHOVE  N C  O  N  T  I  N  U  E  D 

phony  is  shown  in  its  final  form  at  (e)  of 
Figure  XXVI ;  (a),  (b),  (c),  and  (d)  of  the 
same  figure  being  a  few  of  the  many  sketches 
through  which  Beethoven  approached  it.    The 


Figure  XXVI.    A  few  of  the  many  stages  in  the  evolution  of  the 
Second  Subject  of  the  'Eroica'  Symphony. 

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points  of  especial  beauty  in  the  matured  theme 
appear  sporadically  in  the  earlier  sketches.  Of 
these  the  chief  are :  the  insistent  beat  of  the 
rhythm  ;  the  impressive  cadence  in  the  fourth 
measure  and  the  beat  of  silence  following  it  in 
the  fifth;  the  rise  to  the  poignant  G  in  the  sev- 
enth measure,  and  the  lapse  by  rapid  motion 
down  to  B-flat  again ;  the  sudden  assumption 
of  the  minor  mode  in  measure  9,  and  the  modu- 
lation to  the  distant  key  of  D-flat  it  suggests ; 
and  the  uneven  yet  satisfying  balance   of  the 

3*3 


4 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

three  complete  phrases,  together  with  the  sense 
of  being  poised  in  air  given  by  the  sudden 
cessation  of  the  rhythmic  pulse  at  a  point  so 
distant  from  the  key.  The  rhythm  appears  in 
the  very  first  sketch,  marked  (a)  ;  the  cadence 
and  beat  of  silence  appear  in  (b),  as  does  also 
the  rise  to  G  in  the  melody,  except  that  the  G 
is  flatted,  slightly  sentimentalizing  the  effect. 
The  modulation  to  the  key  of  D-flat  appears  in 
(c)  and  (d),  but  in  each  case  its  effectiveness  is 
much  weakened  by  the  quickly  succeeding  fur- 
ther modulation.  The  sense  of  poise  referred 
to  is  entirely  lacking  in  these  two  variants,  be- 
cause a  fourth  phrase  is  added  to  the  three  es- 
sential ones.  In  the  final  form  all  the  effects 
are  made  with  certainty  and  economy. 

Beethoven's  method  of  drafting  and  re-draft- 
ing his  subjects  enabled  him  to  bring  them  at 
last  to  a  formal  perfection  undreamed  of  by  less 
painstaking  composers.  His  best  themes  com- 
bine almost  the  highest  possible  degree  of  va- 
riety and  unity,  and  therefore  attain  almost 
the  highest  possible  degree  of  beauty.  We  saw, 
in  connection  with  the  Quintet  of  Mozart  (Fig- 
ure XVIII),  how  high  synthetic  powers  of 
mind  enable  a  composer  to  combine  different 

3»4 


BEETHOVE  N C  ONTINUED 

motifs  in  one  theme  in  such  a  way  as  to  attain 
great  variety  of  parts  with  final  unity  of  im- 
pression. Beethoven  exhibits  constantly,  in  his 
best  work,  an  even  higher  degree  of  this  syn- 
thetic power  than  Mozart  was  master  of.  He 
knew  how  to  build  the  most  diverse  materials 
into  a  compact,  indissoluble  organism.  His 
briefest  themes  often  discover  this  power  as 
strikingly  as  his  long  and  elaborate  movements. 
The  first  theme  of  the  Sonata  in  A-major  for 
Violoncello  and  Piano,  which  appears  in  Fig- 
ure   XXVII,  is  an  example    of  the  way  the 

Figure  XXVII. 


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faculty  shows  itself  within  narrow  limits.  Here 
are  six  measures,  each  containing  a  different 
scheme  of  time  values;  yet  the  theme  as  a  whole 
is  as  compelling  in  its  unity  and  certainty  of 
intention  as  it  is  engaging  in  its  variety. 

The  exploitation  of  the  primary  themes  in 

3*5 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

the  course  of  a  long  movement,  however,  the 
constant  evocation  from  them  of  new  meanings 
and  interests,  is  of  course  the  last  and  finest  evi- 
dence of  Beethoven's  genius  in  composition.  It 
was  in  this  logical  drawing  forth  of  the  implica- 
tions of  his  thought  that  he  was  unapproach- 
able. He  uses  to  admiration  all  those  devices 
of  development  we  have  already  enumerated — 
inversion,  augmentation,  diminution,  shifted 
rhythm,  and  the  rest — yet  never  descends  to  the 
mechanical,  as  his  great  successor,  Brahms,  who 
is  perhaps  the  only  modern  composer  who  com- 
pares with  him  in  this  faculty  of  logical  devel- 
opment of  an  idea,  sometimes  does.  Beethoven 
always  seems  to  be  merely  making  explicit 
what  was  implied  in  the  theme  itself.  In 
Figure  XXVIII  are  put  down  a  few  of  the 
more  important  modifications  of  the  first  sub- 
ject of  the  Eroica  Symphony,  as  an  illustration 
of  the  inexhaustibility  of  fancy  displayed  by 
Beethoven  in  this  sort  of  development,  (a) 
is  the  theme  in  its  initial  form.  Note  how, 
with  that  mysterious  C- sharp  in  the  bass, 
in  the  fifth  measure,  the  outline  is  momentarily 
blurred,  and  the  insistence  on  the  tones  of  the 
triad  relaxed,  until  with  measure  7  the  key  is 

316 


BEETHOVE  N C  ONTINUED 


Figure  XXVIII.    Some  of  the  developments  of  the  First  Subject  in  the 
'  Eroica'  Symphony. 
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BEETHOVEN      AND     HIS      FORERUNNERS 

reentered  and  the  sentence  soon  brought  to  a 
firm  conclusion.  No  one  but  Beethoven  could 
ever  have  conceived  that  C-sharp.  In  (b),  which 
follows,  in  the  score,  immediately  on  (a),  the 
second  half  of  the  motif  is  made  the  subject  of 
a  development  by  repetition,  at  a  higher  and 
higher  pitch.  In  (c),  which  occurs  after  the 
second  subject,  and  near  the  end  of  the  first 
section  of  the  entire  movement, the  same  portion 
of  the  motif  is  further  exploited.  For  the  first 
four  measures  it  is  thrown  back  and  forth  in 
imitation.  In  the  fifth,  sixth  and  seventh  meas- 
ures it  is  given  to  the  bass,  in  diminution  (note 
how  piquantly)  and  in  the  eighth  measure  it  is 
both  diminished  and  inverted,  yet  without  giv- 
ing the  slightest  impression  of  artificiality.  The 
subject  appears  at  (d),  which  is  a  part  of  the 
working-out  portion  of  the  movement,  in  the 
minor  key,  and  rapidly  modulating  to  distant 
keys,  as  is  appropriate  in  that  part  of  the  com- 
position the  aim  of  which  is  to  contrast  with 
the  definiteness,  orderliness,  and  precision  of 
the  Exposition.  At  (e)  the  subject,  still  in 
minor,  is  heard  in  the  bass,  while  the  treble  has 
as  a  counterpoint  to  it  a  tripping  rhythm  de- 
rived from  another  part  of  the  original  mate- 

320 


BEETHOVE  N C  ONTINUED 

rial.  At  (f),  becoming  emphatic,  magniloquent, 
the  theme  is  sounded  forte^  and  in  unison  by 
the  whole  orchestra,  and  extended  by  a  natural 
magnification  to  an  eight-measure  phrase.  This 
is  developed  at  some  length  in  the  score,  (g) 
is  the  beginning  of  the  Coda.  In  one  of  Bee- 
thoven' s  breathless  pianissimos,  the  subject  is 
given  by  the  second  violins  on  their  G-strings, 
the  first  violins  meanwhile  embroidering  in  an 
elastic  staccato  the  most  indescribably  merry, 
light-hearted  little  counter-melody.  From  the 
freshness  of  this,  one  might  fancy  that  the  work 
was  just  opening  rather  than  drawing  to  its  close. 
Truly,  Beethoven's  imagination  is  like  some 
friendly  genie  of  the  Arabian  Nights,  filling  our 
cup  of  enjoyment  as  fast  as  it  is  drained. 

The  mental  power  that  in  the  preliminary  parts 
of  composition  reveals  itself  merely  as  a  remark- 
able ingenuity,  inventiveness,  and  elasticity  of 
mind,  appears,  when  contemplated  in  its  larger 
action,  almost  superhuman  in  its  breadth  of 
grasp.  In  the  conception  and  execution  of  a 
great  symphonic  work,  as  an  integral  whole  of 
many  and  diverse  parts,  Beethoven  is  unap- 
proachable. All  the  successive  movements  in  a 
long  work,  all  the  themes  and   transitions,  all 

3*1 


BEETHOVEN      AND       HIS      FORERUNNERS 

the  rhythmic  changes,  all  the  modulations,  tem- 
porary or  prolonged,  are  foreseen  and  adjusted 
with  perfect  control.  There  is  no  feature  of  any 
moment  that  has  not  its  relation  to  the  whole. 
Often  the  reason  of  some  apparent  whim  will 
not  appear  for  pages ;  but  at  last  it  will  appear, 
and  when  it  does  it  will  be  seen  to  fulfil  a  pur- 
pose never  lost  sight  of.  As  a  turret  or  win- 
dow at  the  extreme  end  of  a  building  may  bal- 
ance a  similar  feature  at  the  other  end,  so  Bee- 
thoven's treatment  of  a  given  theme,  early  in 
a  movement,  may  be  determined  and  illumi- 
nated by  what  he  finally  does  to  it  in  the  Coda. 
So  integral  is  his  work,  so  firmly  held  in  the 
grip  of  his  inexorable  artistic  logic. 

Beauty,  in  the  great  compositions  of  his  prime, 
is  therefore  as  omnipresent  as  expression  ;  and 
their  supreme  greatness  is  in  fact  due  to  the  per- 
fect balance,  in  them,  of  these  two  equally  im- 
portant elements  of  musical  effect.  Before  pass- 
ing on  to  the  consideration  of  his  later  years,  it 
will  be  well  to  make  still  clearer  the  fact  of  this 
balance  of  qualities  by  a  brief  reference  to  the 
highly  interesting  and  significant  attitude  of  Bee- 
thoven towards  program  music. 

Program  music  differs  from  pure  music  in  be- 
3x2 


BEETHOVE  N C  ONTINUED 

ing  aimed  rather  at  the  literal  imitation  or  de- 
lineation of  objects  and  events  in  the  natural 
world  than  at  the  presentation,  through  orderly 
and  consequently  beautiful  tone-combinations, 
of  the  general  emotions  that  they  arouse. 
Schiitz,  a  very  early  German  composer,  depict- 
ing by  a  long  downward  scale  an  angel  descend- 
ing from  heaven ;  Beethoven,  introducing  the 
notes  of  the  nightingale,  quail,  and  cuckoo  in 
his  Pastoral  Symphony  ;  Schubert,  writing  in  the 
accompaniment  of  his  song,  "  The  Trout,"  a 
leaping  figure  suggestive  of  the  motions  of  the 
fish  in  the  water ;  Raff,  sounding  the  rhythm  of 
a  galloping  horse  all  through  the  ride-move- 
ment of  his  Lenore  Symphony:  Wagner,  imitat- 
ing in  the  "  Waldweben  "  the  murmurings  of  the 
forest ;  all  these  composers  are  writing  program 
music.  Of  course  there  is  no  reason  that  pro- 
gram music  should  not  be  at  the  same  time 
pure  music,  provided  that  the  desire  to  imitate 
nature  accurately  does  not  lead  the  composer  to 
slight  the  requirements  of  plastic  beauty  in  the 
ordering  and  combination  of  his  material.  A 
portrait  may  be  good  decoration,  if  composition, 
massing,  light  and  shade,  coloring,  and  so  on, 
are  not  sacrificed  to  a  pitiless  realism.  Just  so, 
323 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

program  music  can  be  made  beautiful,  if  the 
needs  of  abstract  tonal  beauty  are  duly  consid- 
ered. 

But  as  a  usual  thing  they  are  not.  The  pro- 
gram composer  generally  makes  a  fetish  of  his 
"  idea,"  pursues  it  with  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
literalist,  and  quite  neglects  the  formal  sym- 
metry, the  stylistic  congruity  and  harmony,  of 
his  web  of  tones.  The  result  is  that  program 
music  is  as  a  rule  more  interesting  than  mov- 
ing ;  that  in  attempting  to  make  pure  sounds 
do  what  words,  or  even  colors  and  shapes,  can 
do  better,  it  sacrifices  the  legitimate  and  char- 
acteristic effect  of  tones — the  suggestion  of  a 
general  state  of  feeling,  potent  by  reason  of  its 
very  vagueness,  and  transfigured  by  the  ab- 
stract beauty  of  its  medium. 

Now  Beethoven  was  obliged  in  his  early  ma- 
turity to  face  and  solve  this  problem  of  program 
music  for  himself.  His  intense  individualism, 
his  susceptibility  to  strong  feeling,  his  natural  in- 
terest in  the  characteristic,  the  dramatic,  the 
definite,  and  the  opportunity  he  found,  in 
music  as  he  received  it  from  his  forerunners, 
for  a  more  detailed  expressiveness  than  had  yet 
been  attempted,  all  inclined  him  to  take  the 
324 


BEETHOVE  N C  ONTINUED 

attitude  of  the  program  composer.  The  poetic 
conception  of  a  work  was  so  clear  and  distinct 
in  his  mind  that  he  could  easily  assign  it  a  de- 
scriptive title.  He  called  his  third  symphony 
"  The  Eroica,"  his  sixth  the  "  Pastoral,"  and 
said  that  the  motif  of  the  fifth  indicated  "  Fate 
Knocking  at  the  Door."  He  called  one  of  his 
piano  sonatas  "  Les  Adieux,  1' Absence  et  le 
Retour  ;  "  of  another,  that  in  G-major,  Opus 
14,  he  said,  "  It  is  a  dialogue  between  hus- 
band and  wife,  or  lover  and  mistress ;  between 
the  entreating  and  the  resisting  principle;" 
he  tacitly  admitted  that  the  sonatas  in  F-minor, 
Opus  57,  and  in  D-minor,  Opus  29,  were  illus- 
trative of  Shakespeare's  Tempest.  Other  works, 
not  specifically  named  by  him,  wore  very  natural- 
ly titles  given  by  others:  as  the  "Pastoral  Sonata," 
the  "  Moonlight  Sonata,"  and  the  "  Sonata  Ap- 
passionata."  At  the  same  period  that  he  was 
writing  these  instrumental  works  with  program- 
mistic  aspect,  he  wrote  also  his  incidental  music 
descriptive  of  Goethe's  "  Egmont,"  his  overture 
on  the  subject  of  "  Coriolanus,"  and  his  single 
opera,  "  Fidelio."  Of  interpretation  he  said  : 
"  Though  the  poet  carries  on  his  monologue, 
or  dialogue,  in  a  progressively  marked  rhythm, 

3*5 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

yet  the  declaimer,  for  the  more  accurate  eluci- 
dation of  the  sense,  must  make  caesuras  and 
pauses  in  places  where  the  poet  could  not  ven- 
ture on  any  interpunctuation.  To  this  extent, 
then,  is  this  style  of  declaiming  applicable  to 
music,  and  it  is  only  to  be  modified  according 
to  the  number  of  persons  cooperating  in  the 
performance  of  a  musical  composition." 

Yet  in  spite  of  all  these  indications  of  the 
direction  in  which  music  was  moving  with  Bee- 
thoven, his  instinct  for  beauty  kept  him  from 
allowing  mere  delineation  to  become  his  ideal. 
As  Sir  Hubert  Parry  well  says,  the  Pastoral 
Symphony  is  like  a  manifesto  on  that  point.  Of 
all  Beethoven's  works,  it  ventures  farthest  into 
the  domain  of  program  music.  It  contains  ac- 
tual imitations  of  sounds  and  sights  in  nature^ 
as  the  rippling  of  the  brook  (strings)  ;  the  mus- 
tering of  thunder  (contrabasses  in  their  low  reg- 
ister) ;  flashes  of  lightning  (violins)  ;  the  bas- 
soon of  an  old  peasant  sitting  on  a  barrel,  and 
able  to  play  but  three  tones  ;  and  the  song  of# 
the  nightingale  (flute),  quail  (oboe),  and  cuckoo 
(clarinet.)  All  the  movements  bear  descriptive 
titles,  as  follows :  "  The  awakening  of  happy 
feelings  on  arriving  in  the  country;  Scene  by  the 
326 


BEETHOVE  N C  ONTINUED 

brook ;  Merry  gathering  of  peasants  ;  Thunder-r 
storm;  Shepherd's  song — Rejoicings  and  thank- 
fulness after  the  storm."  It  is  obvious  that  here 
Beethoven  was  pushing  the  descriptive  power  of 
music  to  its  limits.  Yet  it  is  important  to  note 
that  even  here  neither  his  instinctive  sense  of 
the  proper  uses  of  the  musical  art  nor  his  reas- 
oned conviction  as  to  the  nature  of  musical  ex- 
pression forsook  him.  Throughout  the  growl- 
ings  of  the  thunder,  the  music  pursues  its  way 
coherently  and  accordingly  to  its  own  laws.  The 
rhythmic  scheme  and  the  harmonic  sequence  are 
maintained,  and  the  general  structure  is  not  for 
a  moment  forgotten.  After  the  imitation  of  the 
bird-notes,  in  the  second  movement,  the  musi- 
cal sentence  is  rounded  out  to  completion  by  the 
lovely  concluding  phrase,  imitated  by  various 
instruments.   (See  Fig.  XXIX). 

Figure  XXIX.    The  bird-notes  in  the  Pastoral  Symphony. 
(Nightingale). 


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BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

It  is  only  necessary  to  play  the  bird-notes 
alone,  omitting  the  supplementary  phrase,  to  see 
how  much  of  the  effect  is  a  matter  of  pure 
music.  And  that  Beethoven  realized  this  him- 
self, that  he  was  clearly  aware  that  music  affects 
us  more  by  setting  up  vague  but  potent  emo- 
tions in  us  by  means  of  a  beautiful  embodiment 
of  expressive  sounds  than  by  merely  copying 
what  is  in  the  actual  world,  is  evidenced  by  the 
motto  he  inscribes  at  the  head  of  his  score : 
"Mehr  Ausdruck  derEmpfindung  als  Malerei  " 
— "  More  the  expression  of  feeling  than  paint- 
\  ing."  Even  more  succinct,  if  that  is  possible,  is 
a  note  in  one  of  his  sketch  books  :  "  Pastoral 
Symphony  :  no  picture,  but  something  in  which 
the  emotions  are  expressed  which  are  aroused  in 
men  by  the  pleasure  of  the  country." 

This  attitude  of  Beethoven's  towards  program 
music,  both  in  practice  and  in  theory,  is  but  a 
crucial  and  striking  example  of  his  general  atti- 
tude towards  music,  an  attitude  produced  both 
by  the  tendencies  of  the  historic  moment  and 
by  his  native  genius.  Had  he  had  less  capacity 
or  taste  for  expression  of  the  most  definite  and 
vivid  emotions,  he  would  not  have  been  able  to 
carry  music  beyond  the  formalism  of  Haydn 
330 


BEETHOVE  N C  ONTINUED 

and  Mozart,  and  to  make  it  voice  the  self-con- 
scious idealism,  the  romantic  intensity,  the  var- 
ious, many-sided,  and  profound  spiritual  life,  of 
modern  men.  Had  he  not,  on  the  other  hand, 
clung  pertinaciously  to  the  plastic  beauty  which, 
after  all,  is  the  most  indispensablequality  of 
musical  art,  had  he  allowed  his  interest  in  the 
characteristic  to  betray  him  into  literalism,  he 
would  have  deprived  music  of  that  period  of  full 
maturity  which  he  represents,  and  ushered  in  too 
soon  the  inevitable  decadence,  in  which  art  is  no 
longer  whole  and  balanced,  but  seeks  special  ef- 
fects and  particular  expressions,  becomes  mete- 
oric, dazzling,  and  fragmentary.  That  period 
was  bound  to  come,  as  the  parabola  must  make 
its  descending  as  well  as  its  ascending  curve, 
or  the  plant  have  its  autumn  as  well  as  its 
spring  and  summer.  But  before  the  appeal- 
ing, but  pathetically  incomplete  work  of  the 
romanticists  came  to  give  a  sort  of  Indian  sum- 
mer brightness  to  the  musical  year,  it  was  meet 
that  it  should  have  its  full  harvest  of  ripe,  sound, 
and  wholesome  beauty.  And  this  it  had,  in 
the  incomparably  sane  and  noble  works  of  the 
mature  Beethoven. 


33» 


CHAPTER  IX 
CONCLUSION 


CHAPTER     IX 
CONCLUSION 


* 


HE  third  and  last  period  of  Bee-  / 
thoven's  life,  from  1813  to  1827, 
during  which  he  produced  the 
remarkable  later  pianoforte  so- 
natas and  string  quartets,  th? 
Quintet,  opus  104,  the  Wind  Octet,  opus  103, 
the  noble  Missa  Solennis,  which  he  consid- 
ered his  greatest  work,  and  the  immortal  Ninth 
or  Choral  Symphony,  was  a  time  of  affliction 
and  wretchedness.  The  record  of  these  bitter 
years  of  the  deaf,  lonely,  poverty-hounded  mas- 
ter, surrounded  by  unfeeling  relatives  and  in- 
different and  dishonest  servants,  stricken  with 
disease,  and  laboring  through  all  to  realize  his 
grand  artistic  conceptions,  is  relieved  only  by 
his  unflinching  fortitude  and  grim  humor.  The 
heroic    spirit  of  the  man  matched  his  misfor- 

335 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

tunes.  •    For  him,  if  for  any  one,  the  boast  of 
the  stoic  poet  would  have  been  justifiable : 

"  In  the  fell  clutch  of  circumstance 

I  have  not  winced  nor  cried  aloud; 
Under  the  bludgeonings  of  chance 
My  head  is  bloody  but  unbowed." 

There  was  something  almost  diabolically  sin- 
ister in  the  fate  that  placed  Beethoven,  so  sen- 
sitive to  personalities,  so  peculiarly  in  need  of 
tranquillity  for  the  pursuit  of  his  ideas,  in  the 
midst  of  such  a  pack  of  rascally  kindred.  The 
great  canker  of  his  life  was  his  nephew,  Carl, 
left  his  ward,  in  1815,  by  the  death  of  his 
brother.  A  loafer  in  billiard-rooms,  a  devotee 
of  cheap  amours,  a  dissipated,  frivolous,  and 
wholly  irreverent  weakling,  this  young  man 
looked  upon  his  uncle  simply  as  a  source  of  flo- 
rins, having  apparently  no  respect  for  his  age, 
his  sufferings,  or  his  genius.  To  make  matters 
worse,  Beethoven  found  it  necessary,  in  order 
to  secure  the  boy's  custody,  to  go  to  law  against 
his  mother,  whom  he  picturesquely  and  signifi- 
cantly named  "  The  Queen  of  the  Night."  He 
was  involved  in  endless  lawsuits  to  gain  the  very 
responsibilities  which  proved  so  heavy  and  so 
fruitless.     Carl  rewarded  all  this  care  and  love 

336 


CONCLUSION 


by  holding  clandestine  meetings  with  his  moth- 
er, by  squandering  his  uncle's  hard-earned 
money,  by  neglecting  the  commissions  which 
the  composer,  deaf  and  ill,  was  obliged  to  en- 
trust to  him ;  and  finally,  brought  to  the  verge 
of  despair  by  his  own  weakness,  he  attempted 
suicide,  was  locked  up  in  an  asylum,  and  was 
eventually  packed  off  to  the  army.  In  all  Bee- 
thoven's struggles  with  his  nephew  he  got  no 
help  from  the  boy's  other  uncle,  the  "  land- 
owner "  of  the  anecdote,  Johann  van  Beetho- 
ven, whom  the  composer  bitterly  called  his 
"pseudo-brother."  This  complacent  apothe- 
cary saw  no  need  of  helping  a  brother  who  was 
one  of  the  greatest  artists  living,  and  whose  life 
was  being  slowly  sapped  by  sordid  anxieties. 
Doubtless  Beethoven  was  a  man  difficult  to  help 
— a  man  of  high  temper,  perverse  whims,  un- 
compromising speech.  But  the  story,  neverthe- 
less, is  an  unpleasant  one,  in  which  young  Carl 
and  old  Johann  Beethoven  play  unenviable 
roles. 

In  his  contact  with  these  wretched  relatives 
Beethoven  was  not  supported  by  a  comfortable, 
congenial  home.  A  bachelor,  poor,  absent- 
minded,  and  engrossed  in  abstract  pursuits,  he 

337 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

was  at  the  mercy  of  rapacious  landlords  and 
self-seeking  or  incompetent  servants.  After 
1816,  when,  largely  for  his  nephew's  sake,  he 
began  keeping  house,  he  was  given  hardly  a 
moment  of  ease  by  what  he  called  his  "  domes- 
tic rabble."  His  letters  are  full  of  indignant  pro- 
tests or  half-humorous  jibes  against  "the  old 
"  witch,"  or  "  Satanas,"  as  he  called  his  house- 
keeper— a  half-crazy  beldame  who  not  only 
neglected  his  table  and  let  the  dust  thicken  on 
his  books,  but  on  one  occasion  actually  used 
the  manuscript  of  a  part  of  his  great  Mass  to 
wrap  around  old  boots.  "  My  dear  Son,"  he 
writes  (it  was  thus  that  he  habitually  addressed 
his  nephew),  "  It  is  impossible  to  permit  this 
to  continue  any  longer ;  no  soup  to-day,  no 
beef,  no  eggs,  and  at  last  broiled  meat  from  the 
inn !  Little  as  I  require  what  nourishes  the 
body,  as  you  know,  still  the  present  state  of 
things  is  really  too  bad,  besides  being  every  mo- 
ment in  danger  of  being  poisoned."  Another 
time  he  exclaims :  "  Here  comes  Satanas  .  .  . 
What  a  reproach  to  our  civilization  to  stand 
in  need  of  a  class  like  this,  and  to  have  those 
whom  we  despise  constantly  near  us."  How 
must   Beethoven  have   felt  when  the   nephew 

33? 


CONCLUSION 


whom  he  had  trusted  as  a  son  descended  so 
low  as  to  borrow  money  surreptitiously  from, 
this  very  "  Satanas  "  ?  "  Last  Sunday,"  he 
writes,  "you  again  borrowed  i  florin  15  kreut- 
zers  from  the  housekeeper,  from  a  mean  old 
kitchen  wench, — this  was  already  forbidden, — 
and  it  is  the  same  in  all  things.  What  avail 
even  the  most  gentle  reproofs  ?  They  merely 
serve  to  embitter  you.  But  do  not  be  uneasy  ; 
I  shall  continue  to  care  for  you  as  much  as 
ever. 

Another  constant  harassment  of  Beethoven 
in  his  later  years  was  poverty.  The  annuity  set- 
tled upon  him  by  his  patrons  was  so  seriously 
decreased  by  a  depreciation  in  the  value  of  pa- 
per money  and  by  the  deaths  of  some  of  the 
donors  that  it  eventually  amounted  to  only  four 
hundred  dollars  a  year.  "  If  my  salary,"  he 
wrote  in  1822,  "were  not  so  far  reduced  as  to 
be  no  salary  at  all,  I  would  write  nothing  but 
symphonies  for  a  full  orchestra,  and  church 
music,  01  at  most  quartets."  As  it  was,  he  had 
to  devote  a  part  of  his  time  to  writing  for  money, 
a  servitude  intensely  distasteful  to  one  so  devoted 
to  high  artistic  ideals,  so  constitutionally  inca- 
pable of  compromise.     He  puts  the  best  face 

339 


BEETHOVEN  AND  HIS  FORERUNNERS 

on  the  matter,  jokes  about  it  as  he  does  about 
everything ;  but  it  is  obvious  that  he  suffered 
much  to  gather  the  florins  his  nephew  so  easily 
spent.  "  I  wander  about  here  with  music  pa- 
per, among  the  hills  and  dales  and  valleys,  and 
scribble  a  great  deal  to  get  my  daily  bread ;  for 
I  have  brought  things  to  such  a  pass  .... 
that  in  order  to  gain  time  for  a  great  composi- 
tion, I  must  always  previously  scrawl  away  a 
good  deal  for  the  sake  of  money."  But  his  at- 
titude towards  publishers  remained  dignified, 
considerate ;  he  knew  how  to  respect  his  own 
work  and  rights  without  falling  into  the  petty 
egotism  of  the  so-called  "  artistic  temperament." 
"  I  must  apprise  you,"  he  writes  Herr  Peters  of 
the  well-known  Leipzig  publishing  house, "  that 
I  cannot  accept  less  than  50  ducats  for  a  string 
quartet,  and  70  for  a  pianoforte  one,  without 
incurring  loss ;  indeed,  I  have  repeatedly  been 
offered  more  than  50  ducats  for  a  violin  quar- 
tet. I  am,  however,  always  unwilling  to  ask 
more  than  necessary,  so  I  adhere  to  the  sum  of 
50  ducats,  which  is,  in  fact,  nowadays  the  usual 
price.  I  feel  positively  ashamed  when  I  have 
to  ask  a  price  for  a  really  great  work.  Still,  such 
is  my  position  that  it  obliges  me  to  secure  every 

340 


CONCLUSION 


possible  advantage.  It  is  very  different,  how- 
ever, with  the  work  itself;  when  I  never,  thank 
God,  think  of  profit,  but  solely  of  how  I  write 
it."  It  is  a  similar  dignified  sense  of  hjs  respon- 
sibilities, far  removed  from  vanity,  that  prompts 
him  to  request  of  an  editor  notice  of  his  nom- 
ination as  an  honorary  member  of  the  Royal 
Swedish  Musical  Academy.  "  Although  neither 
vain  nor  ambitious,"  he  says,  "  still  I  consider 
it  advisable  not  wholly  to  pass  over  such  an  oc- 
currence, as  in  practical  life  we  must  live  and 
work  for  others,  who  may  often  eventually  ben- 
efit by  it."  The  sincerity  of  these  convictions  is 
proved  by  the  fact  that  after  Beethoven's  death 
in  poverty,  eight  bank-shares  were  found  among 
his  papers,  carefully  preserved  by  him  for  the 
legacy  of  his  nephew. 

Beethoven's  deafness  went  on  steadily  increas- 
ing. That  is  a  pathetic  picture  his  friend  Schind- 
ler  gives  of  him,  improvising  with  all  the  enthu- 
siasm of  his  inner  inspiration  on  the  violin  or 
the  viola,  which,  because  of  his  inability  to  tune 
them,  gave  out  the  most  distressing,  discordant 
sounds.  On  the  piano  it  was  but  little  better; 
he  had  to  guide  himself  largely  by  sight,  and 
his  touch  became  harsh  and  heavy.     The  effect 

341 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

of  this  malady  on  his  character,  already  men- 
tioned in  Chapter  VII,  and  recognized  by  him- 
self in  his  "  Will,"  *  grew  as  time  went  on  more 
profound.  He  became  morbidly  suspicious, 
withdrew  himself  entirely  from  casual  social  in- 
tercourse, and  distrusted  even  his  best  friends. 
Friendly  consultations  in  his  behalf  he  inter- 
preted as  collusions  against  him,  and  resented 
with  all  the  violent  anger  of  his  intense,  will- 
ful, and  frank  nature.  When  Lichnowsky, 
Schuppanzigh,  and  Schindler  met  at  his  room, 
as  if  by  chance,  to  discuss  a  concert  they  were 
planning  for  the  presentation  of  the  Missa  So- 
lennis  and  the  Ninth  Symphony,  his  suspicions 
were  so  aroused  that  he  wrote  the  three  faithful 
disciples  as  follows : 

To  Lichnowsky : 

"  Insincerity  I  despise ;  visit  me  no  more ; 
my  concert  is  not  to  take  place. 

"  Beethoven." 

To  Schuppanzigh : 

"  Come  no  more  to  see  me.     I  give  no  con- 
cert. 

"  Beethoven." 

*See  page  276. 

34a 


CONCLUSION 


To  Schindler : 

"  Do  not  come  to  me  till  I  summon  you. 
No  concert. 

"  Beethoven." 

The  dogmatic,  domineering  habit  of  mind  here 
illustrated,  the  obverse  side  of  Beethoven's 
strong  will  and  high  self-reliance,  doubtless  did 
much  to  intensify  the  loneliness  and  the  diffi- 
culties of  his  old  age.  Yet  even  here  there  is 
something  noble,  something  that  commands  as 
much  admiration  as  pity,  about  this  wounded 
hero,  this  lion  at  bay. 

The  last  scene  of  Beethoven's  troublous  life 
opens  in  October,  1826,  when,  already  aged  and 
broken,  though  but  fifty-six  years  old,  he  was 
obliged  to  seek,  in  the  house  of  his  "  pseudo- 
brother  "  Johann,  at  Krems,  fifty  miles  from  Vi- 
enna, a  refuge  for  Carl,  who  had  been  ordered 
out  of  Vienna  by  the  civil  authorities  after  his 
attempt  at  suicide.  Sir  George  Grove  gives  a 
picture  of  the  oddly-assorted  group  of  actors : 
"  The  pompous  money-loving  land-proprietor  ; 
his  wife,  a  common  frivolous  woman  of  ques- 
tionable character  ;  the  ne'er-do-well  nephew, 
intensely  selfish  and  ready  to  make  game  of  his 

343 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

uncle  or  to  make  love  to  his  aunt ;  and  in  the 
midst  of  them  all  the  great  composer — deaf,  un- 
tidy, unpresentable,  setting  every  household  rule 
at  defiance,  by  turns  entirely  absorbed  and  per- 
tinaciously boisterous,  exploding  in  rough  jokes 
and  hoarse  laughter,  or  bursting  into  sudden 
fury  at  some  absolute  misconception."  Bee- 
thoven, whose  health  was  already  seriously  un- 
dermined, was  obliged  to  sit  in  a  cold  room  at 
his  work,  his  brother  being  unwilling  to  go  to 
the  expense  of  a  fire,  and  to  eat  unwholesome, 
ill -cooked  food,  for  which  however  board-money 
was  rigorously  exacted.  By  early  December 
there  was  an  open  rupture  between  the  two 
brothers,  and  the  composer  and  Carl,  resolved 
to  leave  the  place,  yet  denied  the  closed  carriage 
of  the  niggardly  Johann,  risked  the  fifty-mile 
journey,  in  winter  weather,  in  a  hired  open 
wagon.  It  was  Beethoven's  death  blow.  Reach- 
ing home  after  two  days'  exposure,  he  took  to 
his  bed,  with  his  digestive  troubles  much  aggra- 
vated, and  an  inflammation  of  the  lungs.  A 
little  later  dropsy  set  in,  and  four  operations  had 
to  be  undergone.  As  the  doctors  drew  out  the 
water  Beethoven  said  grimly :  "  Better  from  my 
belly  than  from  my  pen."     Early  in  the  new 

344 


CONCLUSION 


year  he  rallied,  and  planned  fresh  compositions. 
He  amused  himself  with  the  romances  of  Scott, 
but  at  last  threw  them  down,  exclaiming  angrily  : 
"  The  man  writes  for  money."  Soon  he  began 
to  fail  again.  On  March  24th,  rapidly  sinking, 
he  just  found  strength  to  whisper  to  the  friends 
at  his  bedside  :  "  Plaudite,  amici,  comoedia  finita 
est."  After  a  desperate  struggle  of  two  days, 
his  vigorous  constitution  at  last  succumbed,  and 
he  died  on  the  evening  of  March  26th,  1827.) 
Of  the  compositions  of  Beethoven's  last  pe- 
riod the  most  conflicting  opinions  have  been 
held.  Musicians  of  the  Wagner  and  Liszt 
school  have  seen  in  the  Ninth  Symphony  the 
opening  of  a  door  into  a  new  realm  of  art,  greater, 
freer,  more  deeply  expressive  than  any  that  had 
gone  before.  Critics  less  in  sympathy  with  the 
tendencies  of  romanticism,  however,  have  inter- 
preted the  last  phase  of  Beethoven's  career  as  a 
decadence,  the  necessary  result  of  flagging  vital- 
ity and  of  his  previous  exhaustion  of  the  legit- 
imate effects  of  pure  music.  They  have  pointed 
out  that  his  deafness  made  him  indifferent  to  the 
actual  sensuous  effect  of  his  combinations  of 
tone  ;  that  his  increasing  fondness  for  the  sub- 
tleties of  polyphony  was  not  supported  by  ade- 

345 


BEETHOVEN   AND   HIS   FORERUNNERS 

quate  early  training;  and  that  the  isolation  and 
sufferings  of  his  life  gradually  undermined  the 
sanity  and  marred  the  balance  of  his  art.  Proba- 
bly there  is  some  truth  in  each  of  these  views. 

It  is  certain  that  Beethoven,  in  his  last  quar- 
tets and  pianoforte  sonatas,  and  in  the  Ninth 
Symphony,  showed  for  the  first  time  the  feasi- 
bility of  those  special,  highly  individualized  ex- 
pressions of  feeling  in  music  which  were  after- 
wards wrought  out  in  great  variety  and  profu- 
sion by  Schubert,  Schumann,  Mendelssohn, 
Chopin,  Liszt,  and  the  other  composers  of  the 
Romantic  school.  He  not  only  made  music, 
as  we  have  already  seen,  a  language  as  well  as 
an  art,  but  he  set  the  fashion,  in  his  last  compo- 
sitions, of  regarding  its  powers  of  eloquent  and 
definite  utterance  as  of  even  greater  importance 
than  its  general  plastic  beauty.  FroJ3i_±lie_£gint^ 
of  view  of  interest,  this  was  an  advance ;  and 
judged  from  this  standpoint  Beethoven  was  a 
pioneer  in  that  movement  towards  characteristic 
expression  which  has  been  so  important  a  part 
_o£j&he  musical  activity  of  our  time. 

But  every  advance,  in  art  as  well  as  in  life, 
is  made  at  a  certain  cost,  and  the  price  of  this 
increase  in  complexity  and  preciseness  of  ex- 
346 


CONCLUSION 


pression  was  a  loss  of  artistic  wholeness  and 
poise.  As  a  monument  of  pure  beauty  em- 
bodied in  tones,  the  Ninth  Symphony  hardly 
holds  its  own  beside  the  Eighth,  so  much 
smaller  and  less  ambitious.  One  misses  in  it 
the  sense  of  reserve  power,  of  restraint,  of 
firmly  controlled  balance  of  means  and  ends. 
The  passionate  spirit  of  the  work  jars  and  dis- 
rupts its  body.  Music  is  strained  to  its  limit 
of  power  ;  and  great  as  is  the  result,  the  success 
seems  too  much  like  a  feat  of  genius,  done  in 
despite  of  natural  laws.  In  all  Beethoven's 
later  works  there  is  this  uncomfortable  sense 
of  strain  and  labor.  He  achieves  the  well-nigh 
impossible,  but  it  is  at  the  cost  of  serenity. 

Tin  view  of  the  circumstances,  we  may  think 
it  could  hardly  have  been  otherwise.  Long- 
continued  deafness  had  made  Beethoven  in- 
sensitive to  the  sensuous  basis  of  music.  He 
considered  less  and  less  the  actual  sound  of  his 
fabric  of  tones,  more  and  more  their  purely  in- 
tellectual and  ideal  relations.  The  pages  of  the 
final  sonatas  and  quartets  bristle  with  passages 
as  distressing  to  hear  as  they  are  interesting  to 
contemplate.  This  tendency  to  harshness  was 
reenforced  by  his  growing  addiction  to  contra- 

347 


BEETHOVEN     AND     HIS      FORERUNNERS 

puntal  writing.  His  natural  style  was  that 
monophonic  or  harmonic  style  initiated  by  the 
Florentine  reformers  and  passed  on  to  him 
through  Haydn  and  Mozart.  But  as  he  medi- 
tated, ever  more  profoundly,  he  came  to  see  its 
inadequacy,  and  constantly  felt  out  more  and 
more  in  the  direction  of  polyphony  ;  he  endeav- 
ored to  graft  the  fugue  and  the  canon  upon 
sonata-form.  His  early  training,  however,  was 
insufficient  for  such  a  task  ;  his  limitations  in 
counterpoint  had  been  correctly  gauged  by  his 
teacher,  Albrechtsberger ;  and  when  in  his  ma- 
turity he  attempted  to  write  polyphonically,  he 
became  crabbed,  awkward,  and  discordant.  His 
instinct  was  right,  but  his  skill  did  not  support 
him.}  In  choral  writing,  again,  to  which  he  de- 
voted himself  with  increasing  enthusiasm  as  he 
grew  older,  he  was  at  a  disadvantage.  He  dis- 
regarded the  natural  conditions  of  the  voice  ; 
he  never  really  mastered  vocal  style  ;  and  when 
he  introduced  a  chorus  into  his  last  and  most 
gigantic  symphony,  he  attempted  more  than  he 
could  satisfactorily  execute.  The  choral  part 
of  that  symphony  is  exceedingly  difficult ;  and 
the  audience  is  made  almost  as  uneasy  by  it  as 
the  chorus. 

34* 


CONCLUSION 


The  isolation  in  which  he  finally  came  to  live, 
and  the  natural  independence  of  his  character, 
added  their  influence  to  those  of  physical  and 
technical  limitations.  As  he  cared  less  for  gen- 
eral intelligibility,  and  more  for  the  logical  carry- 
ing out,  to  their  extremes,  of  the  implications  of 
his  ideas,  his  music  became  more  and  more  ab- 
struse. His  constantly  increasing  interest  in  in- 
tellectual subtleties,  on  which  his  great  and  lonely 
mind  naturally  concentrated  itself,  was  not  regu- 
lated by  a  sufficient  perception  of  the  sensuous 
qualities  of  his  work — for  he  was  deaf;  and 
consequently  the  balance  was  destroyed,  the 
great  sanative  touch  of  the  actual  was  lost,  and 
his  music  became  distorted  and  grotesque.  Some 
of  the  fugues  in  his  later  quartets  and  piano  so- 
natas sound  more  like  audible  problems  in  chess 
or  mathematics  than  like  "  the  concord  of  sweet 
sounds." 

Suffering  so  extreme  as  Beethoven's  had  its 
inevitable  effect,  too,  on  the  whole  general  tone 
and  quality  of  his  artistic  utterance.  He  learned 
the  lessons  of  sorrow  as  few  men  have  ever 
learned  them;  temporal  misfortune  taught  him 
to  impersonalize  his  ideals,  to  turn  to  the  eter- 
nal sources  of  hope  in  his  inmost  spirit,  and  to 

349 


BEETHOVEN      AND     HIS     FORERUNNERS 

interpret  the  joys  and  sorrows  not  of  his  sepa- 
rate self  merely,  but  of  all  humanity  ;  but  at  the 
same  time  that  his  spirit  was  thus  chastened 
purified,  and  expanded,  it  was  shorn  of  its 
primitive  vigor,  its  pristine  elasticity,  energy, 
and  animation.  If  the  music  of  his  prime  is 
the  music  of  pagan  idealism,  that  of  his  later 
years  is  the  music  of  stoicism — the  stern  and 
noble  stoicism  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  touched  with 
the  tenderness  and  spiritual  joy  of  Christ.  It 
breathes  a  high  serenity,  a  transfigured  human 
happiness,  attainable  only  to  a  great  soul  after 
much  suffering.  If  any  mortal  artist  could  be 
justified  in  such  a  boast,  Beethoven  was  justified 
when  he  wrote :  "  I  do  not  fear  for  my  works. 
No  evil  can  befall  them;  and  whosoever  shall 
understand  them,  he  shall  be  freed  from  all  the 
misery  that  burdens  mankind." 

^  -  As  we  take  a  last  backward  glance  over  the 
life  of  Beethoven,  and  over  that  larger  life  of 
the  art  of  music  in  the  classical  period,  of  which 
it  was  the'final  stage,  we  cannot  but  be  profound- 
ly impressed  by  the  unity  and  continuity  of  the 
whole  evolution.  From  its  first  slight  and  ten- 
tative  beginnings   in   the  experiments   of  the 

350 


CONCLUSION 


Florentine  reformers,  secular  music,  the  art  of 
expressing  through  the  medium  of  tones,  the 
full,  free,  and  harmonious  emotional  life  of 
modern  idealism  gradually  acquired,  through  the 
labors  of  the  seventeenth-century  composers, 
definiteness  of  aim  and  technical  resources. 
Then,  in  the  work  of  Haydn  and  Mozart,  it 
reached  the  stage  of  maturity,  of  self-conscious- 
ness ;  it  became  flexible,  various,  many-sided, 
adequate  to  the  demands  made  upon  it;  it 
emerged  from  childhood,  and  took  its  honored 
place  in  the  circle  of  independent  and  recog- 
nized arts.  Finally,  it  was  brought  by  Beetho- 
ven to  its  ripe  perfection,  its  full  flowering.  It 
was  made  to  say  all  that,  within  its  native  lim- 
itations, it  was  capable  of  saying.  It  reached 
the  fullness  of  life  beyond  which  it  could  live 
only  by  breaking  itself  up  into  new  types,  as 
the  old  plant  scatters  forth  seeds.  And  even 
these  new  types  were  dimly  divined,  and  sug- 
gested to  his  successors,  by  Beethoven.  Was  it 
not  his  effort  to  express,  in  absolute  music,  the 
most  various  shades  of  personal,  highly  special- 
ized feeling,  vigorous,  sentimental,  mystical,  or 
elfishly  wayward,  that  inspired  the  romantic 
composers,  Schubert,  Schumann,  Chopin,  and 

351 


BEETHOVEN      AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS 

their  fellows,  to  pursue  even  further  the  same 
quest  ?  Was  it  not  his  feeling  out  toward  novel 
dramatic  effects  in  the  combined  chorus  and  or- 
chestra, in  the  Ninth  Symphony,  that  showed 
Wagner  the  path  he  must  take  ?  Was  it  not 
his  attempts,  defeated  by  insufficient  technical 
skill,  to  combine  the  polyphony  of  the  sixteenth 
century  with  the  harmonic  and  rhythmic  struc- 
ture of  the  nineteenth,  that  suggested  to  Brahms, 
more  fully  equipped,  his  great  enterprise  ?  Thus 
even  the  failures  of  a  great  man  are  full  of  prom- 
ise; and  Beethoven,  and  all  his  forerunners  too, 
still  live  and  speak  to  us  in  the  music  of  to-day. 


35* 


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